perspective for a Monday

I walked along a riverside park today, newly healed from flooding.

I passed a tree, tipped over on its side, roots to the air and trailing branches in the current. It would not die: all along its trunk it sported sprouts, green hope that willed itself to live.

Where waters rushed the grass the ground was rough. My shoes would stick. I walked more slowly there, the grandeur round me lost for sake of footing; my eyes were down, saw mud and barely-clinging grasses new with spunk. The arching oaks above I did not see – till roughness past, I raised my eyes once more and knew my state. So like life I laughed – how roughness narrows vision, and all I see is churned-up soil, roiling and stumbledy with rocks. To see the beauty, then, I have to stop. I can't look up if I keep on, when I'm on tumbledy ground. I have to stop, or stumble on unseeing.

"Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of God."  Hebrews 12:2

But then! to look above the roughness and see far for once! A sense of smallness I didn't know I sought comes rushing in, a comfort. The trees are tall, have been here since before my eyes saw light. The rivers' banks will still be here when I'm no more. The water came from far and does not notice me before it passes by for parts unseen. It never hurries.

Some geese, distraught at my approach, honked their distress. Not wanting enmity, I found a bench to put their minds at ease (& mine). I watched the river, saw raindrops twinkling at the edge. The image given back was smeared, impressionistic. No bankside tree was clear in all those raindrops. A single drop would alter it but little; the multitude obscured the whole reflection.

"Now we see but a poor reflection as in a [bronze] mirror; then we shall see face to face.  Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known."  I Corinthians 13:12

Again, like life. The kitchen floor, the dishes, all the laundry piling up, the crying kid, the supper not yet planned – heap up like teardrops in my vision, keeping me from seeing clear the simple truth: they need my love.

Just love.

Just stop on stumbledly ground; look up into his Face and feel my smallness. The universe is on His shoulders, not on mine. I'm His and He will carry me. He was, and is, and always will be Here and Now: I AM's his name. Let God be God and I'll just be His child. Look up, and faith (my hand in His) will keep my feet for sure.

[adding to my refrain of praise....]

# 186 - a day off, and its potential

# 187 - (nostalgia)  the smell of fall's first heat:  hot dust

# 188 - chill air (again!)

# 189 - a friend who skips, and listens

# 190 - raindrops twinkling rivers' edge

# 191 - the maples, bit with color

# 192 - that whorl in bark, and wrinkling down to roots

# 193 - the sound of raindrops on my roof