Last weekend I happened to be near Alamogordo, New Mexico and stopped at the White Sands National Park. When you first drive into the park, you see a lot of scrub bushes with bits of sand here and there. And I thought: yeah, that's interesting, seeing white sand in the midst of all the weeds and bushes. But as I kept going farther and farther into the park, I began to see more and more sand, actual dunes, and finally I was surrounded and engulfed in a vision of white, like an ocean of sand. There was still sand and blowing sand; the ground was covered with sand, the sky from the wind was covered with sand. Everything was an exquisite, pristine white— unlike anything I'd ever seen or imagined. Sometimes we come upon an unexpected doorway to beauty. At first glance, it seems nondescript and mundane. But then as we go deeper, as it reveals itself to us, with a shock we feel that power of beauty to awaken and jolt us out of the ordinary into the realm of vision.