J opened the curtains in the guest room this morning and marvelled at the sun which poured through the small window. Because of the orientation of the house, and its placement with respect to trees and neighbors, this is the only time of day, the only time of year, that the sun shines directly through that window. Ten minutes later and the entire universe will have shifted just enough to put the window once again in shadow. And so for a moment or two — before the regular “getting ready to head off for work” routine resumed — we basked.

You can’t help but be amazed; it is almost enough to make me believe in a higher being: that the busy, unruly sun — with so much to do, so many responsibilities elsewhere in the cosmos, all that chlorophyll to photosynthesize — would take the time to send a bolt of light across 93 million miles of interstellar space to astonish the two of us.

And with such accuracy! Our window offers such a tiny target, and still the solar shaft managed somehow to find its mark.