It was like the Ray Charles line from “Georgia On My Mind.” I saw “moonlight through the pines.” I was on the running trail. The humidity was formidable. Thunderstorms were passing through the Southeast. Heavy rains had moved up from the Gulf and across Alabama and were now across Georgia. Tornado watches had been issued for much of the region. The clouds obscured the little moonlight available for most of my miles on the trail, but occasionally I would notice ghostly white light on the trail. I would look up and see there was a clearing in the clouds as they passed between the earth and our orbiting moon. Moonlight through the pines.

I inhaled the smells of rainwater that had pooled in low areas. I saw headlights in the distance from cars driving towards the trails atop a distant hill. Other early morning types were launching their days outside, too.

Countless times I have walked after the rain, smelled the rich earth, smelled the pines, gazed up at the moon, and seen clouds slide slowly across the skies, and known viscerally that we are designed to see and steward well that which we have been given.