Sunday, July 29, 2012

Places of Peace and Beauty

On our last day on the coast we went again out to a lighthouse.  We drove through swirling fog out to the Cape Meares Lighthouse and took a short walk down to the edge of the cliff

The views were spectacular...


as was the lighthouse.


View from the other side of the cliff.


The next day, we got up, drove through the Tillamook Forest through Portland, across the Columbia River and into our new life in Washington.  We got Elisabeth from her TCK camp at Multnomah on Friday and started to pull our live together.
Honestly, it's been hard.  It's hard to re -acclimate to what we know but don't know.  People have been gracious and kind but we are in a kind of in-between stage of our lives.  We are settling in but it just takes time. We have heard that it takes about 18 months to really re-adjust.


Today we got some unsettling news.  By "happenstance", I saw an ad for The Grotto in a tourism guide.  The Grotto is a Catholic Retreat and Prayer Grounds in Portland about 10 minutes from our home. So Elisabeth and I got in our borrowed van and drove over.  We both felt the need for some outdoor beauty in a peaceful place.


We sat in the chapel for a while and prayed.


We walked and saw beautiful gardens with trees, bushes and flowers.


We took this very odd elevator to the top gardens.


Most of the statues were very oriented towards Mary the mother of Jesus.  As a non-Catholic, they didn't have a strong meaning for me.  But some of the others, such as the above, were quite beautiful and well done.
I am finding these times of quiet and peace more and more necessary in my life, especially in these times of readjustment.



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