Editorial November 3, 1997 Issue

The presence of all that is good

William E. Moody

Over the east bank of the Penobscot River the morning sun was still hanging well below the treetops. Shadows ran deep and cool along the shore as our canoe drifted quietly down-stream. Soon we rounded a long point of land where a stream entered the main channel. There were no trees here, and the slanting rays of sunlight were warming the five-foot-high grass.

Then, right in front of us, a deer stood up. At first I could see only her head and front shoulders above the grass. Cautiously, she stepped out in full view, turned and, with a few more steps, was completely lost to sight again. I thought she must have been asleep in the tall grass and was suddenly awakened by the canoe. Or perhaps she had been stealing down to the river for a drink of fresh water, carefully concealing herself along the way.

Whatever the deer had been up to, I later wondered about how much we must miss around us—about dimensions to life we just don't see because of our present standpoint. That morning, for one moment all I had been aware of was a grassy point of land with a couple of red-winged blackbirds chittering back and forth. The next moment, the deer was simply there. Then she was gone again. But she had been there, even when I didn't realize it.

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The presence of all that is good

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