Sight And Vision.

('Mine eyes have seen the glory/ of the coming of the Lord'. 'The Battle Hymn Of The Republic'. Julia Ward Howe 1819-1910) . My eyes have seen a slice of life in the world and I have been blessed by beautiful landscapes like the English countryside in the Midlands, which affected me, on British Rail, like a sedative. I learned to ski with French friends on some mountain near Grenoble. There were still traces of the 1968 Winter Olympics in the air and conversations in the city when I lived there. On a T.G.V. train, I saw the rolling vineyards, olive groves and the startling bright lavender fields of Provence, loveliest of regions in France. On a tour, we stopped at Lauterbrunnen, a place of deep valleys between soaring peaks, and we rode the steep cable car up a mountain slope, then a ski lift chair over a vast, deep chasm, where I was afraid to look down.Thus we went from Schlegel to Schilthorn. The Ghan took me across the endless, lonely Outback of Australia. Like Elijah at Horeb, I had glimpsed the glory of the Lord in the world. -22/ 23 July,2019