day ten

surprises within and deep thoughts about nature. as i was sitting by lake harriet this morning with my oldest daughter, i casually looked out the window and noticed a group of trees that were beginning to blossom. they were beautiful – and they seemed to surprise me. i hadn’t remembered seeing other trees with budding leaves, and as i looked around, i noticed just a few. why was that? why were some blossoming ahead of the rest? what had they received that the others had not? and how does that apply to people? why is it that some people seem to blossom while others are not? (i’m not talking about people in different parts of the world – i’m talking about people that are often standing right next to each other.) random thoughts, i know.

then i began to notice how green the grass had turned within a matter of one day (as a result of tuesday’s rainfall). now, i’m no scientist, but i imagine that the water first made its way into the ground and then found its way into the blades of grass themselves. i began to think about how everything is really without color, and that the only reason i see color is because of how objects reflect the light. does that make sense? for instance, i see grass as being green because the properties of grass allow it to only reflect the green portion of light. it’s all about reflection. and then i started to think about individuals, and how we are all reflecting something. we reflect those things that have influenced us. we reflect those things that occupy our time. we reflect those things that we follow. and then i had more questions. what light am i reflecting? and if it’s the light of jesus, am i reflecting all of the light? or just a portion of the light? and does that mean that others around me may be reflecting portions of his light that i disregard simply because i am not familiar with them?

here is another thought or two. can followers of jesus reflect his light in different ways? (i’m thinking in terms of denominations and religions here.) we can get so hung up on differences sometimes and i’m starting to wonder if we are simply reflecting different portions of the same light. don’t misunderstand me, i do think that there are some individuals who are reflecting false light in the name of light, but let’s not go there today.

i was also thinking about how it was the water that was able to change the reflective abilities of the grass – from reflecting brown light into reflecting green light. as followers of christ, we too have been given water – the living water of the living god – which gives us the ability to reflect light differently. i guess i’m just wondering if we should all look the same, or if we should all look a bit different. i don’t know the answer.

then as i was walking to work from the parking lot, i noticed how cold it felt in the shadows compared to the warmth of being in the sunlight. two locations (literally a few feet from each other) with very different characteristics – leading to two very different feelings. and then if you think of this in terms of a larger playing field (outer space), isn’t it true that the farther you are from the sun, the colder you feel? and that the closer you are to the sun, the warmer you feel? this is so applicable to my spiritual journey. i can completely relate to this. the farther away i seem to be from god, the colder i typically feel – empty, confused, unfulfilled, etc. while the closer i seem to be to him, the warmer i feel. the conundrum is this... what does it mean when you are making every effort to be close to your heavenly father and yet still feel cold? i have been there, and seem to return to that place often. why is that? does that mean that i’m just kidding myself and that i’m not close at all? or does it mean something else? again, i don’t know the answer.

i will say this, nature to me seems so simple and yet so complex at the very same time. i’m not sure why that is, but that’s what i have found. yet there are so many valuable lessons to be learned from it. and i think god uses nature often as a way of speaking to us. tonight as i was leaving a parking lot in bloomington, i looked up and saw the most incredible sky. it was perfectly clear and painted in every shade of blue – from the deepest of blues to the lightest of blues – in the most perfect of gradations. The moon was positioned in such a way that it was reflecting just a sliver of the sun’s light and it looked like a smile to me – a sideways smile. perhaps god was smiling at me in a playful spirit tonight, with his head turned slightly to the side. my heart smiled back.

those are my random thoughts for the day.