California is the proverbial West. It means West: the Pacific Beaches, the Coastal Ranges. It IS the West.

But we still have the sunrises that burst over the eastern hills. It was the East that made me lace up my running shoes this morning to try to catch it. It was the East that woke me up today.

And I run East when I run up the hill, and over my left shoulder, to the North, are our local mountains, this morning shrouded in fog and leftover snow from last week. My horizon is covered by hills, so by the time I actually see the sun (and not merely the brilliance of its reflection), it is high and mature.

The notions of East and West are difficult for a child looking at a globe. The East goes around and then goes around again, somehow always being East and never West. And the West does the same.

And I think of the One who tells me that my wrongs are as far as the East is from the West. I try to catch the East in a morning jog and I never will; my futility is evident in my slow stride and heavy legs. But I am revived today knowing that not only will I never catch the sunrise, but I will never again know those same wrongs, the ones that are hidden from me in the East.