Below the Brightness explores the life of the spirit, searching for the light piercing into a world that is full of darkness. These spiritual reflections often look to the danger and beauty of the natural world-the cycle of seasons, the lives of trees, the flight of birds-always listening for the quiet hum of hope and redemption. Most of these poems employ the traditional tools of meter and rhyme, often with strikingly compact lines, condensing images and experiences down to diamonds of clarity. These musical verses aim to offer an honest expression of the frail and flawed human condition--looking forward to the divine brightness, crying out in prayer, and sometimes breaking through to praise.