Making Sense

Two small pots sit on my kitchen window sill.  One of them is a basil plant that keeps us supplied for our favorite appetizer, caprese salad, or as Steve and I call it, tomatoes and mozz.   As I put it up in the window this morning, I noticed that one of the leaves was getting brown; so I pulled it from the stem.  And the air was instantly filled with that beautiful basil smell.

I was hit with the fact that the Father provided so many small treasures for us to enjoy through our senses.  So today’s blog is an ode to my favorite sense-satisfiers.

Sight:  My sweet man snoozing in his leather recliner way too early in the evening after a hard day battling wind on the golf course.  The Spanish moss in my live oak whipping back and forth from that same wind.  My Claire bent over a jigsaw puzzle.  Jake’s eyes lighting up when we surprise him with a visit.  Snowflakes floating.  The easy glide of an egret across the lake.  An owl sharing a long, intimate stare with me.  Sunset streaks of pink and purple.

Sound:  The soft snuffle of Chloe’s snore.  The delight of one of Maggie’s songs coming on Pandora.  Waves rolling in.  The precision of a Bach invention.  The soft patter of rain on the patio.  Laughter.  The lonesome sound of a single Canadian goose.  The mockingbird that wakes me up and somehow I don’t mind.

Touch:  The softness of my down comforter as I pull it up under my chin.  The feel of puzzle pieces that fit just so.  The breeze that floats in through the open window.  The slight sting of a hot shower on a cold day.  The soft down on a newborn baby’s head.  The feel of a brisk, cold wind on my cheeks when the rest of me is wrapped in warmth.

Smell:  Homey goodness seeping from Steve’s breadmaker.  My gardenia bush outside the front door.  Citrus housecleaning supplies.  Fresh-mown grass.  Rain coming and the freshness after.  Roses, lilac, wisteria.  Cinnamon cider simmering on the stove on a fall day.  Freshly laundered sheets.

Taste:  The first juicy peach of the season.  Chocolate – milk, dark, with nuts, with nuts and fruit, without nuts, I could go on and on.  Warm cookies straight from the oven.  A tall glass of cold milk with those cookies.  Fried chicken.  Red velvet cake.  Lemonade, slightly tart.  Cheese and grapes.  Steve’s fresh-baked bread.  Sweet peach tea.

Open your eyes!  Taste and touch.  Go out and listen for the details of this amazing world and have a blessed, a truly blessed day.

1Chronicles 16:32, 33; Psalm 13:61; 66:5
Let the sea resound, and all that is in it; let the fields be jubilant, and everything in them!  Then the trees of the forest will sing, they will sing for joy before the LORD, for he comes to judge the earth…I will sing to the LORD, for he has been good to me…Come and see what God has done, how awesome his works in man’s behalf!

On Looking Up

This blog finds me where I would prefer it not, doing what only a great love for my dogs keeps from being a dreaded chore.  I was picking my way across the side yard and entered the back, methodically walking in wide lanes picking up my dogs’ “surprises.”  My mind was in neutral – no thoughts one way or the other – when I looked up just in time for a great blue heron to go sweeping by a few feet away at eye level.  I turned and watched as he flew across the lake and disappeared behind a house.

I was able to enjoy his flight for a few sweet seconds and he was gone.  I immediately realized that if I had been looking up the whole time, I would have seen him approaching and how exciting that would have been!  (Understanding that “eyes up” in this instance would have been a risky way to go and that my shoes might not have appreciated the lesson.)

But the example stands.  How many times I have advised a friend, “Keep your eyes up!  Don’t look at your circumstances.”  And how many more times have I ignored that same advice myself and gotten mired down in the details of my life.  Sometimes I’m walking through by rote, one foot in front of the other, doing chores, running errands, not thinking – just doing.  Occasionally I remember to carry on my day-to-day without arguing or complaining (Phil. 2:14), but mulling over some little details that nag at my mind and bring me down.  In short, letting my normal circumstances or life’s trials rob me of the joy that waits whenever I encounter Jesus.  

Whenever I imagine Him standing there, smiling and eager to visit just because He loves me so, my spirit lifts, the circumstances fade away, and somehow He has once again taken my burdens up to carry Himself.  Eyes up!  Don’t miss the blue herons that God sends your way.

Psalm 34:8-10
Taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in him. Fear the LORD, you his saints, for those who fear him lack nothing.  The lions may grow weak and hungry, but those who seek the LORD lack no good thing.