B158. Simple Views and Ponderings from a Morning Walk

Oh the treasures within our reach at every moment. How I love the coolness of a September morning walk. The lazy chirp of a single bird. The neighbor in his pickup truck who stops to chat. The many hints that Fall is coming soon.

I'm thinking this morning of how little of God's creation we ever see or understand, of how each of us is such a tiny yet giant part of the vast universe, of how our own life experiences, unlike those of anyone else, give each of us wisdom and knowledge and skill that make us valuable to the whole, to each other, all intricately woven into nature's tapestry.

Like Pastor Lara's recent sermon illustration about the giant sequoias in Yosemite Park. Some are almost as big around as the church sanctuary, she said, and reach high into the sky. Yet the roots are not deep. Their strength instead comes from their roots intertwining with the roots of the others, so that the whole forest works together, giving strength and protection to all.

We need each other's differences, each other's wisdom, knowledge, skills, and perspective, to make us all One as God's creation, to make us whole. I will share myself, but in humility, acknowledging that my understanding on its own is flawed in its incompleteness.

Look back at the top photo. Nothing but road? Here's a closer view, still not easy to see, as nature has so designed. A baby kingsnake, about 10 inches long if stetched out straight. Often food for hawks and other large birds, but those that live to adulthood  will eat other snakes including venomous rattlesnakes. Kingsnakes, just because they are snakes, are often feared and harmed, but they are helpful, not harmful, to humans. What/Whom else do we fear to our own detriment?

Consider the acorn. Hundreds beneath one tree, they feed the squirrels. And inside each acorn is a mighty oak tree. Not every acorn will become an oak, but every oak tree was once an acorn, an acorn that went through numerous struggles and changes, dying, burying underground, reaching for the sunlight, sprouting, enduring even the most threatening of storms . . . Who are the mighty trees around you? Are you listening to them? There is often great wisdom in those who have known great struggle.

Many morning glories greet me on my walk, mostly bluish violet, with a few white like this one.  Not planted by any human, they open up every morning to greet those passing by. Then they close back up until the next break of dawn. Those who walk during the afternoons probably miss them, as I miss what only they might see.

With all the recent rain, I encounter various shapes and sizes of mushrooms. It was an accident, but this photo is an optical illusion. You might see the mushroom shaped as an open flower facing slightly right of the the direction of the above flower, or you might see it toadstool-shaped. It's possible to see it both ways; and while we focus on the mushroom, what might we be missing in the surrounding clover?

Alone, we will never see everything, and even what we do see is incomplete without the views and experiences of those who see things from other perspectives. In God's vast universe, a first sign of wisdom must be the acknowledgement that "I see and understand so very little," and a second, that "we all need each other."