Forbidden Places and Empty Spaces

Have you ever sat out on a forbidden balcony, covered yourself in blankets, and just watched the stars?
I have.
They don't do a whole lot, or at least they don't seem to.
But they exist. They are.

If stars were beings, what would they say?
There is no hustle or bustle with a star. They just are.
From countless miles away they shine.
They don't worry about past, present or future- all those moments are simply now.

How do you shine, dear stars?
Surely our childhood got you right, to notice your twinkling- just like the rarest of gems.

So far and yet so close. In the past yet also this moment, and for billions of moments more.
How do you shine?

I tried to count the stars and I couldn't.
Tried naming them and it was too much.
Then I looked, just looked, and sat and looked some more.
How can they be so....?
How can they be?
(Can I just Be?)

What a life...

Have you ever lived upside down?
Try it some time.
Living life upside down you see it inside out.

I lived upside down for a day....
Gnarled branches spread from the tips of knotted trunks.
Through their leafy covering the gentle wind plays tag
With clouds that run and laugh and cloak themselves in shapes.
I laugh with them, lost in the soft green carpet of itchiness....
But the little blades turn into a bed under my sunbaked body.

My soul is lost in the wind and my body is empty,
I am gone with the wind, delighted in the twitters over and around me-
A mockingbird and dove sing to each other above me, sweet songs of friendly banter.

Planes hum overhead and chattering goes on around me.
Life passes me by yet I move with the wind.
I am lost but I am found, gone from myself yet here nonetheless.
Life goes on around me, yet Here has never been more now.
Tired limbs raise up with joy still.
Quiet hearts upside down, turned around for a time.
What joy is this- what life!

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?