“A man sees in the world what he carries in his heart.” —Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

I walked out to catch the sunrise this morning. If I looked overhead or behind me it was all dark, foreboding clouds, but looking east at the new day arising there was a break in the clouds and a bit of sunrise color lighting up the sky. as I walked down to the waterline it began to rain, a reminder from the angry clouds above that I ought not turn my back on them. We can’t ignore darkness but we can seek something better for ourselves. I lingered with the whispering sunrise and turned back to the shelter of the house. Sitting with my coffee, this Goethe quote greeted me. Who says we don’t manifest what we most want to see in this world?

Manifest Destiny once drove American expansion westward. The term is thus forever linked to that part of our collective history in the United States, but we may borrow the phrase as we contemplate our own beliefs about the world and our place in it. We may see beauty where others only see darkness. We may find our own path towards a brighter future still. Life is often nothing more than what we make of it.