Last summer I saw a baby Stellar Jay perched on my arbor, resting after trying out its wings. I looked away for an instant; when I looked back, it was gone.
It reminded me of something The Venerable Bede once said. Bede was an Anglo-Saxon monk born in 672A.D.
In The Ecclesiastical History of the English People he compares a person’s life to the flight of a sparrow. Imagine sitting in a mead-hall at supper by the light of a blazing fire, while outside a winter storm rages.
A sparrow flies in one door of the hall, into the light, then darts out out another door, back into the cold dark night. “So our lives appear for a short space,” said Bede, “but of what went before, or what is to follow, we are utterly ignorant.” 
People have many different thoughts, feelings, beliefs and explanations as to what or if anything comes before…
…or after the sparrow’s flight.
Sooner or later each of us will fly out into the night.
That seems to be the only thing everyone can agree upon.
I don’t need to know all the answers before I fly back out.
I am right here, right now, basking in the warm and beautiful light of life.
Whatever happens outside the mead-hall won’t change the way I live my life here and now.
I have work I am passionate about…
..family I love and good friends to play with.
I care about issues in the wider world…
…and in my own little sphere.
I hope I can make some small difference…as a writer, a storyteller, a parent, a friend…
…and to leave even just a little nightlight shining…
…when my flight is done. 
All words and images copyright Naomi Baltuck
Click here for more images of The One Word Photo Challenge:Storm.
Click here for more interpretations of The Weekly Photo challenge: Let There Be Light.
Click here for more interpretations of Nancy Merrill’s Photo a Week Challenge: Flight
Writing Between the Lines 