Quiet, beautiful places

Sometimes we need quiet places where the beauty is bound to return year after year. The Rochester Cemetery in Iowa--a cemetery, parts of which have never been tilled, holds hillsides of native prairie flowers-- is such a place for me. It offers a connection to lives lived before my time, and reminds me of the inexorable chain of time.

Ideas can come in quiet places or in the middle of airports or busy streets. But the quiet, beautiful places allow us to hear the meaning that comes only in silence.

I hope for all of us that there are some quiet, beautiful places this summer.