“They will be given challenges based on phenomena such as hurricanes, fog, tornados and tsunamis. So you see this year it's pretty relevant.” -Julie Berry

I updated my profile header with a snowy mountain picture that I took on one of our hikes late last spring. That is what Utah winters usually look like, Crisp clear blue skies, purple mountains covered in clean white snow. Notice the contrast to the heavy air in these photos I took recently.

It appears that my camera is out of focus, I assure you, this is what you see without the lens.

This year is an exception. Heavy clouds of dirty air held in by low atmospheric conditions, turning to ice crysals in the frigid temperatures.

And then this: Fog.
A fog so thick it can hide monstrous mountains behind its veil.

Although summer is my favorite of the four distinct seasons here in the state, I don't mind winter.


It has its own beauty. The (usually) few days we have with really low temperatures and 'bad air' are more than redeemed with those sunny winter days.



Those days you need sunglasses from the sun gleaming off the freshly fallen snow. White as marshmallow fluff. 


A golden sun cast over the dark looming and white topped mountains is a sight to behold, takes your breath away.




The weather this month seems to be a metaphor for the deep pain and non-clarity that my friend Mike must have been feeling over the holidays.


And 200 miles south of here, On a small Island that is a beautiful haven for tourists and yet only a few miles in, a poor and starving home of many terrorized by violence.

The people there are fighting a fog of their own. A deep, unsettling and scarring fog.
Made worse now with the earthquake.
Far too many paying the ultimate price. And even more it seems left to live a hell on earth, with nothing left.

I watched a clip from a news story, a woman no older than her late twenties or early thirties, she was chanting and wailing as she was held by her husband. A woman literally driven insane by the loss of not one child but all five of her loves. The heartbreak this poor woman was more than I could bear to watch. The correspondent, by his own admittance, a tough minded soul, broke down at the sight of her pain.

The fog is thick, the pain is unbearable. This will one day be a piece of history, much like that fateful day in 2001. But I don't think that this fog will ever completely leave us.

It is in times like these, we also see more humanity, more love, more charity. The people of Haiti have needed help for a long time. They have lived a nightmare long before the earth shook their island nation to rubble.

Could this be our wake up call? Should we try to do more?
For the third worlds, for the troubled friend, perhaps for the lonely elderly, the struggling single parent or young mother.
There are things we can do to help clear the fog, and each small pebble builds mountains.