The Rev. Billy Graham and I are not the most likely pals in the world, but when I was a reporter assigned to travel with him on one of his crusades, I was mesmerized by his charisma, his faith, his generosity of spirit. We spent a lot of time together, he knew how to handle reporters, and one day, when we drove past a gas station in his limousine, and I squawked about the rising price of gas, he told the driver to pull over and we had a long time. Jon, he said, you will drive by a lot of gas stations in your life, and the price will always be going up. Same with taxes. The weather will mostly be lousy, food prices will mostly be rising, young people will be going to hell in a handbasket, and things will never be as good as they were.

So there is only so much room in your head, he said, he said, and you can fill it with complaints and lament, or you can fill your God-given spirit with goodness and joy and affirmation. I have almost nothing in common with an evangelical minister, riding along with me on a Southern highway, but I felt a strong connection with the Rev. Graham, and I think of him often, especially this week, as we enter our third consecutive week of rain, showers, flooding and thunderstorms. Ticks about, mosquitoes are swarming, the pasture is ringed with weeds and mud.

I looked out the window at another gray day and set out to do the only thing that makes sense – find a way to capture the beauty of the rain, of the sun peeping in and out, of the sheen on the roads. The Rev. Graham was correct, of course, this is the choice I have every day of my life. In our world, the choice is to light the candle or curse the darkness, an old cliche that bears up. We live in a time of great argument, lament and complaint. Not where I choose to be. I found my road, I thank the Rev. Graham for reminding me that the human spirit is finite and can only absorb so much, and every day we are defined by what we choose to fill it with. If you go on cable news, you will see one choice. If you go online and jump in the eternal argument and posturing another. If you read angry or nasty e-mails, yet another. Or you can go out and take a photo of a road. Amen to you, brother Graham.