... we overlook so many joys, so many hidden treasures, when we hurry from place to place, person to person, experience to experience, with little attention anywhere. All that matters passes before us now, at this moment. It has been said the greatest gift we can give one another is rapt attention; additionally, living life fully attentive to the breezes, the colors, the sorrows and joys as well, is the most prayerful response any of us can make in this life.
Robert could not find the answer; his mind was driving him in circles. There was only one way to make it stop. Robert walked across the fields at dusk into the Forest of Welferding. His better self always seemed to come out in nature, perhaps because he had come from and would eventually die and go into nature. He felt the cool moisture on his skin, smelled the musky moss tucked between the stones along the brook, walking until he almost forgot why he'd come. The sky was filled with stars with no air raid sirens, no distant roaring of planes. In the forest Robert had caught a glimpse of what the world could be like without war, and it was good.