I headed into the park one morning last week for a little hike, pulling my car into my same old spot, intending to take my usual route, so familiar that I often just follow the ascents and curves without thinking or seeing, and with my brain firmly stuck on cruise control.
But something shifted inside of me. I turned suddenly from the familiar, and instead, traveled my daily terrain in a new direction. I scaled the same hills and entered the forest, but I saw it with fresh eyes.
Repetition sometimes digs a rut. But wonder transforms a daily task into a sacred liturgy.
One familiar loop I ignored entirely. One trail I went down instead of up. I ascended the top of the hill from the opposite direction. And towards the end of my time, I stumbled upon a breathtaking path I had never seen before -- "I wonder where that goes." It was only after layer upon layer of beauty that I noticed that the path ran parallel to my usual asphalt surface, revealing an astonishing splendor not twenty feet from the ordinary.
I did my usual thinking along the way and writing in my head. Out of the shadows, thoughts suddenly flowed freely like a flash flood -- of course, when I don't have anything to write with. I tried to memorize my words like a script. But now on this day from time to time, I even stopped to preserve these fleeting impressions and evaporating ideas by tapping into my phone, frantically searching for adequate words for what I was observing for the first time --tiny details that I had overlooked and the grand scheme of things I had run swiftly past on a daily basis.
One huge tree, I never noticed before, stood defiantly in the middle of a well-trodden trail on a downward slope, alive and well, still rooting itself deeply, reaching up in praise for longer than I have been alive. I had always just viewed it as being in my way, just one more thing to skirt around.
A thousand shades of deepest green surrounded me, more colors than Crayola has names for them. A thick rich canopy hovered above me, swirling like a Van Gogh painting, a fellowship of trees which someone either intentionally planted, or just as mindfully allowed to grow into what is now a majestic sanctuary. God alters the landscape with the righteous deeds of those who came before us and far beyond my time on this planet.
The voice of the LORD
makes the oaks to whirl,
and strips the forests bare;
and in His temple all cry
"Glory!"
Psalm 29. 9
I longed to take off my shoes on this holy ground, right in the middle of a public park, right in the middle of my "ordinary day."
Picking my way down a root-crossed, rocky and unfamiliar trail, I could have been anywhere in the wilderness, indeed anywhere in the world, but suddenly the intimacy of the woods opened up, and I saw a little footbridge, a directional sign, and some cars erratically parked on the side of the road. I knew exactly where I was after all.
We reside in tiny rooms with bare walls that blind us to what lies beyond. God does not intend for us to decorate these spaces, as if this is all there is, but witness His grand chiseling. His faithfulness breaks through, and light seeps through the cracks. His beauty appears through newly formed and unexpected windows, increasing vision for some, and for others sheer hope in impossible situations, the invisible now visible, that which has been there all along.
I knew His splendor was there. I just did not expect such intensity. We rarely do.
It was the same woods, but a different way of seeing. That is how God redeems, even the ordinary.
"We shall not cease from exploration,
and the end of all our exploring
will be to arrive where we started,
and know the place for the first time."
T. S. Eliot
We shall not cease from
exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where
we started and know the place for the first time.
T. S. Eliot
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/t_s_eliot_109032
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/t_s_eliot_109032
We shall not cease from
exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where
we started and know the place for the first time.
T. S. Eliot
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/t_s_eliot_109032
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/t_s_eliot_109032
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