Where Beauty and Burden Share the Same Sky

Some weeks arrive like a mosaic, glittering pieces of joy pressed right up against the jagged edges of the world’s grief.

This was one of those weeks.

It began with the Northern Lights.
Neil and I were out walking, lost in conversation, when a neighbour stopped us with her dog tugging eagerly at the leash.
Her whole face lit up.
Look up, she said, like she had been entrusted with a secret too beautiful to keep.

And there it was.
The sky dancing with green and violet light, a quiet blessing stretched across Calgary.
A moment of wonder we didn’t expect, shared between strangers on a sidewalk.

And then the week carried on, as weeks do, with its mix of beauty and ache.

A new report announced that the living wage in Calgary is now $26.50 an hour.
A number that lands heavily.
A reminder that our city can be beloved and still be bending under the weight of inequality.

I met a woman who had fled domestic violence and was now living in a garage.
A garage.
Safety had come at a terrible price, and food became the first bridge back toward stability.
I brought her some groceries.
A small gesture, but enough to say you matter.

Then came the story from Kentucky, a woman who called churches pretending to have a starving baby.
A stunt for social media, but it revealed something honest and painful.
There are people desperate enough to test the kindness of strangers.
And churches, for all their flaws, are still among the last places someone thinks to call when life unravels.

Aurora Borealis and living wage reports.
Jazz music and someone rebuilding life in a cold garage.
A viral video testing compassion.
All of it felt like standing in two worlds at once.
Beauty above.
Burden below.

In the middle of it all, I was given a journal.
A gift.
An unexpected invitation to try something new.
Lines and colour, nothing polished.
Just a soft place to let the bright parts of the week sit beside the hard ones without having to solve anything.

And somewhere in those pages, Daniel’s story kept stirring.
Daniel not the legend, but the human being who trusted God in uncertain times.
His courage was quiet and steady.
Stubborn in the best way.
The kind of faith that keeps going even when the world feels sharp around the edges.

Maybe that is the thread running through this week.

Learning to hold both wonder and grief.
Letting generosity and anger live in the same heart.
Letting music and scarcity, hope and frustration, sit at the same table.

The world is full of people living on razor thin margins.
And the world is also full of skies that shimmer for no reason at all.
Both are true.
Both shape us.
Both call us deeper into compassion.

If this week taught me anything, it is that our work is not to tidy the mess of the world.
It is to enter the unfinished places with tenderness.
The garages.
The grocery aisles.
The phone calls.
The neighbourhood sidewalks.

And somehow grace meets us there.
In the cracks.
In the courage.
In the strange and holy space where beauty and burden share the same sky.