Remember answering questions on an exam when you were a student? It certainly didn't end when we left school. All our adult lives we face tests. At home or at work our courage and strength are tested, as are our patience and compassion. And there's another test so commonplace that we hardly notice it: the everyday fill-in-the-blank. You've seen it on tombstones. There's a dash, a line, a blank between the dates of birth and death. Each and every moment, we fill in the blank.

The beginning of the year is often the time we choose to look back, measure progress, look ahead, make plans. Those things are good and should be done and probably should be done more than once a year. But after the winter flurry of holidays, holy days, greeting cards and get-togethers, I find myself caught on the edge of this moment right now rather than assessing yesterday or guessing about tomorrow. I try to follow James Thurber's advice: "Don't look back in anger, nor forward in fear, but around in awareness."

My imagination is nourished in the envelope of silence that comes whenever I choose a quiet moment instead of one filled with media. That pregnant pause of silence is when and where and how we find the seed of a song, the germ of an idea, the solution to a problem, or something to fill in the blank.

Some Winter Haiku

The seeds sit ready
Underneath a loaf of snow
Juncos wait for crumbs

The beams from moon set
Meet rays from the new day's star
A crossfire of hope