On a perfect Swedish evening, on the beach of a perfect lake ringed by woods and meadows, a family arrives just as the red-gold of the lowering sun begins to shimmer on the water. The daughter and father move quickly into the lake and swim out. The mother sits on a large towel, reaches for her phone and starts scrolling. She never looks up.

Another family arrives. The father is black and the mother is white. The two daughters are a beautiful mix of their parents. The kids and dad move into the lake. The daughters call, “Mama, come mama, come, it is so beautiful.” She dives in and the family takes turns diving in off the pier. Their laughter is contagious.

The woman on the towel studies her phone as if it were the Talmud–a source for answers to deeply troubling questions.

There are no radios or motorboats. The geese are talking in a bay of cattails. The big cranes cry out in the distance.

I pray for the willpower and grace to become more present.

Michael