Lazy Fascinations

"I'm bored." My children were not allowed to say those words while they were growing up. Really. A human brain can always find fascination in something!

Yet, lately I've been thinking about what it is that fascinates us. Do you listen to the news? Do you watch movies? Do you have a favorite TV show? When story telling, every story teller knows that people are hooked when trouble shows up. There is no story without trouble.

Just ask the news people. We wonder why they only report bad news? It is because we would think the alternative boring. Why do many great movies come with warnings about violence, sex, swearing, etc? Isn't it because these things take us out of our "bored" state. They force some excitement, discomfort or fear upon us, and by doing so, we feel somehow awakened. But are we?

Do we suffer from lazy fascination? Do we ignore the glory around us, and wait for someone or some media to present something shocking, in order to entertain us? Could it be that we are bored with the world as we know it, and rather than act to love it into something better, we prefer to lay back and bask in the evil it has to offer?

Simon Weil has said:
Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring.
Imaginary good is boring; real good is always new, marvelous, intoxicating.

What was the last movie you watched? Would your life be better if you were the main character? What was the last news clip you saw? Would your life be better if you and your family had been on the video clip?

I'm just thinking about our lazy fascinations...

Summer Eden

I wish you could see the view from my dining room window. Stout maples and oaks fall away down the hillside with greens of every shade reflecting sunlight, or resting in the shadows. A breeze teases branches into playing peek-a-boo with those beneath them.

It is just after noon, and the sun is nearly above us, yet only about ten or fifteen percent of the lawn is sunlit. We live in a forest, and it requires effort to hold it at bay.

But where we have resisted its advance, tall fountain grass plants stand like sentinels around an inactive fire pit. A wooden bench and a couple of iron chairs wait together for cool fall days, the dancing flames, smiling faces and singing guitars. Flowers splash varying colors and shades surround tomato, zucchini and cucumber vines; each one in its own turn preparing to offer its produce. And the herb garden breathes its fragrance across our porch and spices our dishes with delight.

When first looking out this morning of my day-off, the sun was only beginning its work. Many flowers remained tucked-in from the night; while a host of beetles were threatening roses, hydrangea and a butterfly bush. The lawn was not mowed and the weeds weren't pulled. There were battles to fight and chores to do. And now the fruit of that labor is sweet.

Much is to be done before Fall. Much to be enjoyed when it arrives.

Light Dwelling

The sun is coming up. It's been at it for a couple of hours now...a slow crescendo of light. Our cabin doesn't receive those unimpeded beach sunrises. Instead, as soon as the glow strikes the horizon to the east, a filtered green begins to weave its way through leaves and branches. The filter-surviving illumination is a magical, velvety green; dark and light hues and all shades in between blanket our home and our yard.

Somewhere late in the morning the sun tops the oak forest and spills its intensity. Those garden plants which require "full sun" begin soaking up their daily, if abbreviated, supply of glow. And so do I, if I'm here on the hill. And then, before the afternoon is gone, shadows cross the lawn once again. Shade-loving plants sigh their relief, and the filtered light--now from the west--lays like some life-giving fog over our home.

I'm trying to learn the ways of light. I want to live in it, and I want to appreciate its nuances. When the sun is up, yet filtered green, it is still daylight on Sam's Hill. And somehow, this sea of green tempers into a kinder form, what can be a powerfully depleting day-long shine.

Sometimes you feel that God is distant, and other times you wish there were some God-filter to temper holy light. I'm trying to be patient with whatever form of light I receive. And I'm trying to appreciate the nuances.

Peace to you light seekers...

Such a thing as glory?

I paused in the forest the other day to look at a leaf. Then a tree trunk. Then I felt a breeze. I stopped again next to a gently flowing stream.

If there were only one tree in the world, would we cherish it? Charge admission? Send pictures across cyberspace? What if even the trees were gone, would we marvel at one remaining leaf in a museum? Would we gaze at the veins in its leaves and wonder at the life that once coursed through them? Or if there was no more wind, would we fan our children and tell them of the mystery of what once was? And if our faucets went empty in a drought, what would we think of water?

Rich Mullins once sang "There is such a thing as glory, and there are hints of it everywhere." If the hints were less abundant, would the glory shine brighter? Or, as I gaze out my office window and see a forest of trees that seem to have no end--each mulched in last season's leaves, blowing in the breeze and drawing up life their roots--is it OK if I experience each chunk of ever-recreating-creation as a demonstration of glory?

I think I will.