Through the sunroof

The gigantic tree by my back door looks like it will uproot my back porch if the wind ever blows too strongly. The trunk butts right up to the house, but the huge old tree grew up and out at an angle, its branches extending to form a leafy canopy over my driveway. Never one to be practical, I have a white car that is beautiful when it happens to be clean but otherwise serves as a large, blank, inviting canvas for the birds and squirrels that cavort above it.

As I walked to my car the other day, I was grumbling to myself about the nasty trail of multicolored droppings all over my car. I was also annoyed because my allergies were bothering me. Feeling sorry for myself, I sat in the driver’s seat, grabbed the bottle of eye drops I’d left in the center console, and tilted my head back to administer the drops. Even though I have a sunroof, I don’t use it much. The wind messes up my long hair, which gets pulled up and out of the opening, and the sun shines through and glints in my eyes, so I usually keep the roof closed tight. But on this particular day, the sliding panel was open, leaving only the clear glass above me, which had somehow not been hit by the little birdy bombs that splattered the rest of my car. The view was gorgeous. The patterns of the lush green leafy covering shimmied in the wind against the clear, cloudless, bright blue sky. The beautiful fall day took my breath away, and I stopped, momentarily overtaken with awe by the sight above me.

I had to laugh at the irony. I tend to be so busy looking at the excrement in my life that I forget to notice the beauty. I have to remember to keep looking up. At the beauty of this earth. At the blessings in this life. And at the One who gave all this to me to enjoy.