Saturday, July 5, 2014

Vision tests much?

Look,I have really bad vision. I not only am blind without contacts or glasses (near and far), but I am pretty oblivious to the world around me. I don't try to be, but I am. Lately, however, my vision has been changing. I still wear contacts, but somehow my eyes have been opened to see differently....
Today, for example, I couldn't help but note some of what my eyes have seen.

I see life,
Strumming his 12-string guitar, playing through the Beatles chords and John Denver's "Rocky Mountain high." He shows us the hits of acoustic history, and his passion for music ebbs and flows through the chords. Joy and wonder dance across the faces of his audience as he tells us- in between. nimble fingers' dancing movements-that he has been playing for 50 years.

I see hope,
Stirring in the bright orange disc hovering nearer still to the horizon. Purples and pinks light up the sky with grey blobs full of healing drops ( yes- clouds ) accenting their vibrant hues. The calm blue  ocean-sky fades to dusk through trees of fir and pine. The beauty surrounds, enveloping heart and soul and stealing breath and thought and worry. As if whispering to the distraught or poor of spirit it says "Be calm my child. Be still." The day does not surrender to the night, but welcomes it. So I will not surrender to the fear of darkness, but hope in the light that calms. For even when darkness surrounds. The light has written a promise on the sky- it will return. And better will be the next than the last.

I see so much more in this day- in parents reaching for hands bound by rings, in divinely inspired spires that see mountainous wonders, in friends young and old communing together. I look around and see hope and love and life- in the midst of a day like all days (filled with all ranges of human emotions from grief to anger to joy), I look around and see God. He is there in the heart of the man strumming, in the architecture of sunsets, and even in the frustration or sadness of loss or pain. I see because He has opened my eyes to see.
I look to Him and I see the world differently.

My dear friends, what do you see, and why?
Would you change it if you could?