Look Well To This Day

In Look Well to this Day (2014) author Tom Gordon offers a daily reflection for every day of the year.  He gives a page to each topic with titles such as ‘Beauty from brokenness’, ‘Trust’, ‘Fossils’ and ‘Counting your chickens’.  I enjoyed the varied brief quotations which gives him a starting point for each reflection - some are contemporary (my favourite being ‘Every path has its puddle’ from the author’s grandmother), but many are from the writings of artists, philosophers, scientists and politicians.

Inevitably his thoughts are personal and this gives the book its strength – he shares reflections from his own perspective and experience that can help us on our journey.  In one article he compares grief to a piece of quarried Iona stone - sharp and jagged to hold. Stones found round Iona’s coast, from the same white marble, have been rubbed smooth into pebbles by centuries of tides.  Similarly, he suggests, holding onto our grief, touching and working with it will, in time, change how it feels for us.