Thursday, October 22, 2009

If Wishes Were Fishes

If wishes were fishes, I'd be a Koi.
  If dreams all came true, I'd be jumping for joy.
But life isn't simple, each day's full of care.
  I'd rather be a Koi jumping up in the air.


Monday, October 19, 2009

Living in the Breaths of the Moment

A dance instructor once told my daughter that they knew they had found a gifted dancer by watching how they moved through the breaths in the music. You can teach steps and teach dancers to count, but not how to breath with the music. The same is true with life. It is what we do in the breaths of life that determines how we deal with life and the quality of our lives.



Do we allow life to rob us of our breath, to suck life from us and leave us an empty shell that has nothing left at the end of the day? In the ever maddening spiral of our fast paced world where work, church, friends, family demand more and more of our time, energy and resources, we feel we have to respond and rise to the demand. We carry the weight of the worry and care of the day, carefully adding the new burdens, cubby-holing them so that we can pull them back out to study and review. When do we breath? When do we stop and take a breath? We no longer remember how to live in the breath of the moment. If only we realized what we have lost.


My daughter-in-law sent me a picture of our young grandson. He was totally engrossed in a flower that he had just picked. Another picture showed him sitting and “reading” a book. At age 15 months he couldn’t decipher the letters on the page, but he was totally lost in the moment of the story that was unfolding in the pictures of the book. We loose sight of the simple pleasures and goals that we had when we were young and the ability to accept life as it happens and find pleasures in the moments as they occur.


I have rediscovered these same moments myself during the last seven months. During the flurry of the day I will find myself suddenly lost in the awe and wonder of something small, but wondrous. Suddenly it dawned on me that I had rediscovered the wonderment of childhood. That the simple beauty of a flower or the over-powering awe of a sudden vista that burst upon me as I rounded a corner in the road would bring me to a sudden stop. The world would hold for a few moments, my soul needed to be fed.


I found myself drinking in the beauty and peace like a poor soul coming in from the desert to an oasis spring after a long hard crossing. My parched soul soaked up the moments and at times hoarded the time and they have turned into hours as I wondered across the hills and valleys of the countryside. For the first time in years I can really breathe. I am not talking about the physical act of breathing, but the breath of the soul and being able to inhale and breathe in and savor the moment for it’s joy, what ever that moment might be.


I have become a believer and partaker of the philosophy that it is not the number of breathes that we take but the number of moments that take our breath away. May this day find you breathless from the wonders you discover as you stop to take in the moments of your life.

Monday, October 5, 2009

Breathless---Truely Breathless


"It is not the number of breaths you take that matter in life, but the number of moments that take your breath away."  ~unknown

I have discovered that I have grossly misused the phrase "it took my breath away" over the years. Always before, I have thought it meant to cause one to have a sudden intake of breath which is held and then slowly exhaled in an expression of "Ohhhh!!" or "Ahhhh!". I was wrong. That is to only be left breathless, which is not a bad sensation.



Today, at 50 +/- years of age, I have had the unique privilege of having something so compelling strike my senses that it literally took my breath away!! --- For the last week plus a little, I have had the joy of watching fall come to the remote highlands of West Virginia. We live in a little valley where everyone knows everyone else's car by the sound of the motor, and persons not belonging to the valley are noticed. It is quiet and peaceful.


Since I arrived, I have watched Spring peek up through the snow and dead vegetation and finally burst forth in a glorious riot of color, kissing the dead brown of winter with life and drawing the earth back from a long sleep to breath the sharp sweet air that only spring can bring to the mountain. I was impressed and lapped up the beauty of the flowering trees and spring flowers as they came forward, each with their own offering of beauty and fragrance that permeated the air around. I thought I had seen heaven and felt breathless at the beauty before me.

THEN summer snuck up behind, rolling over spring like a steamroller with it's wild array of flowers, bushes, trees and birds. I could not keep up. Every time I left the house, or so it seemed, my eyes, nose, and even my ears were met with new sensations and experiences. I stayed in a breathless stayed a good deal of the time as I dived into the splendors of nature's bounty that abounded at my doorstep.

Now fall is here. Over the last couple of weeks I have watched the leaves changing. Every day I have been out taking pictures and thinking that they were absolutely beautiful and it just couldn't get much prettier. That was so, until today. Today, I discovered what it meant to literally have my breath taken away.

As I headed up the mountain to go over it and into town, the leaves just kept getting bolder and brighter and more and more trees were on fire. A great many of the trees looked like flaming matchsticks. The bulk of the tree was still deep green but the outer reaches of the limbs the colors went through the rainbow from yellow to gold, orange and finally a brilliant red at the tips of the branches. It gave the sensation of a forest fire, out of control, raging across the mountain before me.

The noon day sun was shining down across the folds and mounds of the brilliantly burning trees as they waved in the breeze. I was stunned. My heart literally gave a lurch and for a few seconds I could not take a breath, I was so awed by the scene before my eyes. When I finally was able to gasp in a deep breath of air, I found that tears were welling up from deep with-in and flowing down my cheeks out of total awe at His majesty.

Every sense within my soul was drinking in the scene before me, memorizing the colors, the textures, the contrasts, and anything else it could absorb -- praying that the mind’s eye would never forget this canvas of His majesty. Knowing that there were no words to describe or camera with colors capable of reproducing the portrait of His love expressed through His masterpiece of Autumn.

As I continued down the mountain the tears continued to flow freely for those who could not have the joy of such an experience that I had been blessed with; and prayers that my husband would arrive in time to share it before wind, rain, and time worked their destruction on the perfection of the gift He shared with me today.

Later, when I returned home towards Cherry Grove, I thought that it would be sad going back over the same area and not be able to re-experience that same extreme joy of the earlier ride over the mountain. I thought that surely it had been a once in a life experience to have felt a surge of joy that great. But God was still there, in all his majesty and beauty and once again the tears came unbidden and the joy welled up like an eternal spring in praise to His name as I once again passed over the upper reaches of North Mountain under the afternoon sky.

Later, I wondered if this was how Moses felt at Mt. Sinai in the presence of God, when God revealed Himself to Moses; And I only got a tiny peek, WOW!!! If I remember, Moses only saw God's backside. I'm no Moses...!!! So I don't even rate a backside. But I definitely was in the presence of God today. And Yes, it was truly a moment that "took my breath away".

Friday, October 2, 2009

The Road Less Travelled


This afternoon I found myself driving up a "road less travelled".  It was a narrow, almost one-laned, drive that wound straight up the highest mountain in West Virginia.  Inspite of a heavily overcast sky, the fall colors had started to come to the lower reaches of the mountain.

The higher I traveled, the more color accosted my eyes and the more fabulous the views became.  When I finally arrived at my destination, I found myself in the upper elbow crease of one of the "hollows" that run through the hills and vales of the area.  This elbow had been cleared of major brush and trees, creating a sweeping meadow that provided a front row view straight back down the mountain to the valley below.  It felt like I had landed in another land and time, almost. 

The meadow around the small home was dotted with trees in differing stages of color.  The cattle, sheep, and goats grazed lazily about the steep slopes.  The only sound penetrating this ultimate pastoral scene was the wind blowing through the brittle leaves of the autumn trees and the occasion bleet or lowe of one of the animals in view.  It did not matter which direction I turned, my eyes were met with granduer and of life and nature at peace with each other.  Accept for the modern modes of transportation invading the scene and the few poles with their infringing lines and wires, this place could very well look the same as it did 100 or 200 years ago, much as it was when the land was first settled.



,After spending a hour leaning over the front porch rail with my friend and talking about the view and everything in it, along with a few wishes and dreams (what more could I wish with such a scene spread out before me?), I got her permission to take some picture of some old buildings on her property that were tumbling down.  I spent the next half hour or so wandering and enjoying what God had to offer in "eye candy" for the day.

What, I am wondering, is the big picture? Why would God up root us from where we have spent our entire lives, raised our family, and all we know, have and love to move us to the ends of the earth (no...just to the other end of the continent).  I think I have found lesson one: It is okay to slow down and watch life at half-speed.  This is scary, I think I have unplugged from "The Grid".   I'll let you know if it works.