Today it snowed in Pennsylvania. Outside, it looked like this:

I got a lot done, including reading a good bit of the Bhagavad-Gita. I’m reading it as research for the novel I’m working on and also just for me because it is, well, life-changingly profound ancient scripture. A holy gospel of the Hindu tradition. This is the edition I’m reading now, but I have just ordered another translation and can’t wait to read it as well.

I cleaned my office some; I dusted and filed and recycled. I looked closely at my semi-neglected plants and discovered that the daisy I bought last summer and brought inside a couple of months ago is, in spite of the snow, being miraculous:

Then I found on a shelf something I’d tucked away and completely forgotten about; a little book I bought at an antique store last spring in New Hope because I loved the beautiful cover.

I don’t remember giving the inside of the book more than a glance when I bought it. Today I opened it and gently turned the pages, and I found a message hidden inside:

I thought first of the religious and musical connotations of gospel (with a capital G), but I wanted to know the origin of the word. In Webster’s I found:

First Known Use: before 12th century. Middle English, from Old English gōdspel (translation of Late Latin evangelium), from gōd good + spell tale

I am, indeed, trying to write a gospel. A good tale.

Let it be so.

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