The silence as broken at last by the bell signifying the end of morning activity. Turning to the old woman, I asked, "What are you looking at?" I immediately flushed. Prying into the lives of the residents was strictly forbidden. Perhaps she had not heard. But she had. S1ow1y she turned toward me, and I could see her face for the first time. It was radiant. In a voice filled with joy she said, "Why, child, I am looking at the Light."
I have learned to understand time and thought as a spiral: neither a straight line that must go always forward, even into a precipice, nor a circle that must remain forever stuck in repeating past experience. Instead, a spiral, which curves always backward in order to curve forward. What makes time and life into a spiral instead of a straight line or an endless circle is setting aside time for reflection, rest, renewal. That renewal time is the curve that moves the spiral onward. This lets us re-view where we have been, so that we can go forward.