It’s so easy to see the large times, the big things.
The over-the-top sunrise that knocks you upside the head and demands that you sit up and take notice.
The cap and gown and diploma-duly-awarded to that child you pushed out into the world who turned around and pushed all your buttons so many times you up and ran out of ‘em, and realized that while he was learning arithmetic you were learning how to really love.
The healing, miracle, heroic times – the big times.
Really, they’re the God-showing-off times, when you get right down to it. And I love those times, of course I do. We all do. When He parts the sea and raises Lazarus and moves the mountain for us – they’re great times and we are, rightly, grateful for them.
They don’t happen every day of course, these big times. Which might be why we notice them.
But the truth is that God is showing off every day, in so many ways that we don’t really see. That we don’t really bother to notice.
If we did, we might just say that all the world’s holy ground.
We might even go so far as to join Ms. Browning and declare that this whole-wide-world is crammed full with heaven and grace and God Himself.
But mostly we don’t see.
“Earth’s crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God,
But only he who sees takes off his shoes;
The rest sit round and pluck blackberries.” (~Elizabeth Barrett Browning)
I don’t know about you, but I really want to be one of the ones who sees. One of the ones who takes off his shoes and notices what God is up to.
It can be tough to do. Because we’re busy. So busy.
And yet…could it be that in the very busy-ness that we’re busy with there’s a place of grace? Something to notice, something afire with God, heaven crammed into the very place we’re busy being busy?
It could be.
I probably wouldn’t have gone that day, if you’d asked me. Might not even have gone at all, any other day. Looking at rocks? Not my thing, I would’ve said. Too much else to do, I might’ve said. I only have a few hours’ free time and it’s Sunday and I’ve got to get the laundry done, I might’ve said.
Only I didn’t say that. Because the one askin’ is one of those ones who’s been pushing my buttons and teachin’ me how to love so how do you say no to his askin’ for a ride to visit a museum that’s only about an hour away so’s he can get that Geology homework done?
You don’t. Even though you don’t have the time. Because showing up? That’s how love works.
So yeah, me and traffic and parallel parking – we don’t really mix. But we did that day because, well because we had to. And I was right tired even before the trip began since I’d been working all that morning. And I was pretty sure I wouldn’t enjoy any of it – the drive, the parking, the rocks.
I was pretty sure I knew I would be doing a favor, and that that would be the end of it.
But that wasn’t the end of it.
Turns out, I’d never really looked at rocks much. Never even bothered to consider to wonder what God was up to in the sedimentary and the hidden. Never took the time to take the time to notice.
It’s stunning, His handiwork.
Breathtaking, really.
Some say that God is the first Artist, and you know something? After seeing the lavish display of color and shape and design that He’s hidden in this earth – I think I’ll have to agree with that.
And yes, Ms. Browning, I agree.
Earth is crammed with heaven. Bushes – and rocks, I might add – are afire with God.
And I do want to take off my shoes.
Still though, you know, I do love a good blackberry.
~xo,
LuAnne
