"A reminder to see life through clear, unclouded eyes"

 The other day, I went swimming — The water was so impossibly clear that you could see every shimmer of light dancing on the coral, every flicker of a fish weaving its way through the water.. what a pity I didn't have my diving equipment.

The next day, armed with my goggles  snorkel and flippers, I returned to that spot and went under... but everything looked cloudy. Murky. I felt a little disappointed. The beauty I’d expected was gone. I told Andrew how sad it was — that something must have changed. Maybe the tide had turned up the sand, maybe pollution had dulled the view.

And then yesterday, I went back again. I stood at the water’s edge, and once more the sea looked perfect — crystal blue, sparkling in the sunlight. I slipped beneath the surface with my mask and snorkel, eager to capture it… and yet, the same thing. Blurred. Hazy. Unclear.

That’s when it hit me. It wasn’t the sea.

It was my goggles.

Scratched, fogged, imperfect — they distorted what was actually there all along. The ocean hadn’t changed; my view of it had.

And isn’t that how life works?  We look at the world through our own lenses — scratched by disappointment, fogged by fear, tinted by sorrow or past experiences. 

Sometimes we think life has lost its sparkle, that joy has faded, or that people have changed. But perhaps it’s not “out there” that’s different. Perhaps it’s the goggles we’re wearing.

We see through the residue of our own stories.

Through judgments we’ve collected, grief we haven’t let go of, expectations that cloud the light.

We think the world has become dull when in truth, our perspective simply needs a gentle wipe clean.

Maybe it’s time to take off the goggles altogether.  To see things — and people — as they really are.  To look again with soft eyes, clear of scratches, free of assumptions. Because the sea is still beautiful.  The world is still full of light.

And sometimes, the only thing standing between us and that clarity… is the way we’re looking.  

Today, I'm choosing to see the world as clear, bright, and full of grace.

And as always, I will go where the Hart leads.