As many of you witnessed on Friday, the travel to work in the city of Pittsburgh and beyond was less than desirable. It was interesting because the snow this time slipped in so quietly. It was almost as if it did not want to be heard or known or interrupted by anyone. As I stepped outside with my boots and two giant school bags, careful not to break my body on the way down the stairs, I immedietely noticed the snow and the roads. Oh. My. These were the two words that continued to repeat inside my head over and over again. I strapped on my seatbelt, took a deep breath and began to remind myself to breath for the next 35 to 40 minutes as I made my way to school. 

Truly, I have never seen the city in this way before. Everything was white. So white in fact that the spaces and crevices in between city and bridges shops and cars just blurred together. I saw the negative space. I am never able to see the negative space. On the highway, there were no lines. The roadways blended in with the sidewalk which blended in with the grass and on this blurry journey I began to think isn't this what life feels like sometimes for all of us? There are moments when life presents blurriness. In these times of blurry, we are given time to contemplate some of life's deepest questions: 

What am I doing here?

Why was I brought here?

What is my purpose?

What is significant about this moment of blurriness?

What can I begin to define that is undefined?

Think about this, though. When vision is blurry, we seem to come to an unconscious realization that we must create definitive boundaries. The boundaries that are usually there now cease to exist. But think again. Perhaps it is in blurriness that we only truly ever discover or recognize our boundaries, how far we can push ourselves, how deeply and critically we can think about life. The boundaries that continue to exist day in and day out are never noticed because they are habitual in nature. And therefore are more difficult to break and transcend particularly if we do not notice them. Only when we are tested by the blurriness of our vision can we begin to realize just how much power we have in life to push the boundaries of the ordinary. Does the sidewalk actually become separate from the grass, or is the sidewalk meant to be looked at as a safe pathway onto the grass? Is the bridge separate from the water or is the purpose of the bridge for us to view the water from a different perspective? 

And thus I was reminded for some reason, on my drive to school this fine Friday, the parallel between this blurriness I was experiencing and my favorite poem entitled Where the Sidewalk Ends. 

There is a place where the sidewalk ends
And before the street begins,
And there the grass grows soft and white,
And there the sun burns crimson bright,
And there the moon-bird rests from his flight
To cool in the peppermint wind.

I always thought. Well perhaps there are two "separate physical spaces" where the child or the speaker is leaving the sidewalk and crossing over to the the "place" before the street begins. Or perhaps the author was talking about this same blurriness that I was given the opportunity to experience this morning. A blurriness that is welcomed. A blurriness that allows us to transcend time, space and place and think about what is really going on around us. A blurriness that allows us to see an old place as a newer place with crimson bright light and the cool peppermint wind. 

Ironically, as I ended my journey of blurriness, now 7:15 AM in the morning, and I rolled into our school driveway, I had this moment. I was walking to the other side of my car to get my bags and looked up by the light in the parking lot to see beautiful, soft snow falling beneath my feet while simultaneously hearing church bells. Now, I generally come to school 25 minutes earlier, so I am thinking maybe I usually miss the ring of the bells. But then again, I have run back to my car plenty of times around 7:15, and I have never heard the ringing of church bells. Though, I know exactly the church in which the bells were ringing. A small, old white church right off of Church Lane. In fact, so blurred in with its surroundings that it is easily missed. How ironic that the blurred building was the building bringing such precise clarity.

It was a moment of such pure music, that I do not even remember walking from my car to the front door of our building. But the blurriness ended with peaceful clarity. A ringing. A reminder of my purpose and a new set of boundaries to transcend this day at this time. So no matter how clouded or fuzzy your vision may seem just remember this: times of blurriness bring clarity. Clarity erases doubt and true transcendence occurs as we make our way to the place where the sidewalk ends.