“Time to get up…time to wake up…
time to get up in the morning.
Time to end rest…time for our best…
time to get up in the morning…”
- Anonymous
A humming bird was quietly investigating the grapefruit
tree, Texas Ranger bush and long past flowering buds of the barrel cactus in
the yard. Dove and quail were ‘singing in’ the new day as they and the rest of
the desert wild life woke to spend their coming hours foraging for, or becoming
another creature’s, daily fare.
The moon was still clear in the sky above the clouds moving
in on the eastern horizon - the air a little heavy, for the desert, as monsoon
season would bring afternoon rains. Even in the desert there is an unmistakable
clean and refreshing smell – you can almost feel – when the rains come.
There is something about watching the curtain rise in the
darkened theater of the Sonoran Desert. At first everything is the same color,
as though the normally functioning eye is totally colorblind.
Then, in the subtlest of ways, a salmon wisp of color tinges
the bottom of a barely discernable stratus cloud appearing strung out like a
malformed piece of cloth in the northeastern sky. It appears visually as one
might imagine the ‘first chair’ violin sets the tuning note for an orchestra preparing
to play.
With its appearance, other clouds become visible in the
eastern sky, grey and apparently ominous above the Catalina mountains….BUT
then….then as the first act opens, a huge sheet of stratus clouds, as though
waiting for their cue, begin to emerge with brilliant pinks and then reds
controlled by some unseen hand on the rheostat of the universe. For the
briefest of moments it holds the eye and mind, both wishing it would stay just
as it is.
Again as if on cue, these clouds lose their color…now appearing
grey…now white for the day as they move on and morph and dissipate and build,
precursors for the coming cumulonimbus storm clouds following their scent.
The color show ends with a large and dense block of clouds
lighted in the yellowish tinge one sees in the night sky when a city’s electric
landscape provides a signpost of its presence beneath a darkened sky.
Soon, the morning concert ends and all the lighter weight
clouds become whitish wraiths in the fully lit morning sky…the more dense of
the bunch remaining “…50 shades of grey…” undefined by human behavior, but
rather by the master conductor.
One cannot help but be taken by the amazing cycle of life
that begins anew each day. While the morning show is spectacular, it is even
more difficult to appreciate the ability to be taken by its cycle of beauty.
We have been blessed with two gifts – one of which is to see
what happens to the things around us, and how they appear to interact. The
other is to have the ability as a spectator of life, to be grateful for it.
We have an animal body, not terribly unlike the bodies of
all other living creatures. We eat, sleep, protect ourselves and procreate our
species, then cycle off the planet as any other body does. In this respect we
are no different than the beast.
We also have, however, the ability to understand and use
that understanding to appreciate life around us.
We have binocular sight to navigate our world, but there is
more. God has made color and texture that permits us to appreciate our
sight…not simply as a tool for survival and navigation, but rather for
understanding. If all of the objects in our universe fell outside of the
frequency with which we see, we would not know they were there and what would
be the point.
It is not the clouds in the sky that make the music, but
the processing mind that is given to appreciate its meaning.
While there is much in common that we have with the
irrational, survival based creatures of the earth, we have the ability to
understand…to seek…to learn, for it is one thing to see and use something, it
is another to understand…and that can take a lifetime of quiet consideration.
It is written, “Wisdom is the principle thing, therefore get
wisdom, but with all thy getting, get understanding…”
“A humming bird was quietly investigating the grapefruit
tree…” and I continue to pray for understanding…
- ted
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