Creation...

"...he sat and observed the awesome creation manifested before him. He pondered it, wondered at it, and strove to understand it. But it was beyond him..."

After spending an entire Sunday in the house last weekend, I decided just after dark that I would go out for a walk. I donned my shoes and jacket, and set off down the street.

It was in fact, absolutely wonderful outside. The sidewalks and the streets were wet from the rain, there were little streams running down the gutters, and the air was heavy with a variety of aromas that made a person want to stop, breath deep, deep breaths, and feel the sheer joy of being ALIVE!

I wandered past the library, past the business offices, past the bank, and past the McDonald's, crossing the street several times because the sidewalk doesn't run continuously. I hopped over puddles, chuckled a bit to myself at the way I obsess about trying not to step on the cracks in the sidewalk (obviously, I look down too much), and I smiled a bit when the sidewalk ended abruptly in a corner behind a power transformer.

Turning around, I wandered back the same way, passing my house and continuing around the block. I stopped by some juniper hedge, stunned by the aroma that brought back deep memories. I wondered a bit at how the hedge was trimmed into a funny little row with humps along the top. And then I found a little hidden path that led to the inside of the bushes. "How delightful," I thought to myself, "It's like a hidden little corner."

On the way back, I realized that there was some sort of vacant lot on my street that I've never even realized was there. And I also discovered a very large yard without a fence that had grass in it and a huge old tree. I wondered a bit that I had never even noticed it, even though I have walked my street several times.

In the dim light, I couldn't quite figure out which house the yard even belonged to, but I ventured the ten feet into the short grass to touch the huge tree. It is enormous, probably close to four feet in diameter, and it has too be about 30 feet taller then any other tree on the street. I wondered a bit that I have never noticed it before. As I touched the old weathered bark, I felt as though I was wrapped in it's grandfatherly embrace. Smiling, I looked up into it's branches towering above me and wished for a moment that I could climb it.

I decided that I must always hurry too much to notice what is around my house. Perhaps it's time to open my eyes a bit.

During the last few days, between reading Eckhart Tolle's: A New Earth, and Arbinger’s: Leadership and Self Deception, I don't think I'm looking at life through quite the same glasses. I feel profoundly affected, and I highly recommend both books. I feel like we need to try and look beyond the words and the labels that we attach to things in life. It might be said that we need to allow ourselves to actually experience life, and the people that are in our lives. We need to feel, see, and understand more.

And most importantly, we need to understand who we truly are....