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.
Showing posts with label looking up. Show all posts
Showing posts with label looking up. Show all posts
Looking up
This past weekend, I attended a spiritual retreat. Several times a day we walked along a driveway between the conference center and chapel and dining hall. The path was several feet wide and made up of thick, chunky gravel. One side was deeper and harder to walk on; the gravel on the other side was worn down by traffic and was packed and smoother, but there were some ruts and potholes along the way. Several women discussed how precarious it was. We walked back and forth all weekend, heads down, careful not to step in a hole or twist an ankle by stepping on a large, loose rock.
On the third day, as we walked along the path for about the twentieth time, a woman beside me pointed and said, “Look at those trees! When did they change?” Lining that stretch of the path were several maple trees, and they were ablaze in the beautiful vibrant oranges and golds and reds of fall in the Midwest. The colors were so impossibly vivid and saturated against the clear blue sky. Wow. Had they been this way all along?
We spend much of our lives, I think, looking down. We don’t mean to, but we’re so concerned by the things that might trip us up. We watch for potholes and fear losing our balance. All our efforts go into spotting potential traps, not just for ourselves but for our friends, too, to keep them “safe.” And that’s OK. But when we do this, we sometimes forget to look up. If we did, we might be amazed by what we see. There are blessings all around us — some are small, but some are so breathtakingly beautiful that you have to stop walking for a moment to soak it in. Moments like these remind us that, although our walks are important and we don’t want to stumble along the way, there is beauty throughout the journey – if we’ll only look up and open our eyes. Who knows what blessings we’ve missed that have been there all along?
On the third day, as we walked along the path for about the twentieth time, a woman beside me pointed and said, “Look at those trees! When did they change?” Lining that stretch of the path were several maple trees, and they were ablaze in the beautiful vibrant oranges and golds and reds of fall in the Midwest. The colors were so impossibly vivid and saturated against the clear blue sky. Wow. Had they been this way all along?
We spend much of our lives, I think, looking down. We don’t mean to, but we’re so concerned by the things that might trip us up. We watch for potholes and fear losing our balance. All our efforts go into spotting potential traps, not just for ourselves but for our friends, too, to keep them “safe.” And that’s OK. But when we do this, we sometimes forget to look up. If we did, we might be amazed by what we see. There are blessings all around us — some are small, but some are so breathtakingly beautiful that you have to stop walking for a moment to soak it in. Moments like these remind us that, although our walks are important and we don’t want to stumble along the way, there is beauty throughout the journey – if we’ll only look up and open our eyes. Who knows what blessings we’ve missed that have been there all along?
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