It's been a rough summer in Colorado. We started with wildfires all over (but again actually less than 1% of the state was burning..) and now Aurora. It all feels so big and at times has been quite scary. I was not directly impacted by the shooting in Aurora, so am not going to wax on about it too much. Others have written about their experiences and perspectives much more eloquently than I can.
This state is full of rough and tumble - take it as it comes - we do crazy stuff in the wilds of the mountains for fun - kinds of people. They say you are only given what you can handle and we can handle a lot. But as the inimitable @erikbates wrote on my FB wall, "Is it just me, or does God need to go ahead and give the entire state of Colorado a break?"
One thing I have loved about this place is the recognition that difficulty is part of life. In our fast-paced instant gratification world it sometimes seems as though we forget that. Not sure if it's because people are always going up to do crazy stuff in nature, or if it's a lingering bit of the Wild West in the CO culture, but there's a real respect for the cycles of nature, and the world's ability to heal itself.
This is a picture that Chris took toward the end of the Flagstaff fire. I realized on my drive home that day that it was about to rain on the fire, so dragged him and his camera up to the ridge so we could catch the glory of it. I'm not sure what kind of rain we will get to dampen the fire of what happened this weekend. I know it will come and we will heal and something good will come of it. It has to. That's how life works. But hey, let's just not push it too much more for a bit, shall we?
