My friend and I headed to our favourite walking spot, Bonnybrook Beach, for time to inhale and exhale the fragrance of the day and to chit chat and catch up on life. When I picked her up she handed me this beautiful Angel Trumpet flower from her garden. Later she was concerned that this particular flower was not perfect - there are bruises on the petals. While she sees the perfection in all these living things, I found it a perfect flower for this moment because of those imperfections! This tall flower comes in limited numbers each year and has the most exquisite fragrance that cannot be discerned by looking at it from a distance. The name of it even reminded me of things that are not seen by our eyes only - our other senses can “see” so distinctly and perfectly. This Angel Trumpet had its own story to tell me this day.
The other day I was on my ‘irregular but want to be regular’ hour and a quarter walk to work. It is a route that is all country road with a few houses and fairly steady traffic in the morning. The whole area of feeling invisible was in my thoughts and I felt it was very important that I embrace this concept instead of trying to wrestle with it currently. If I am to embrace invisibility will I learn to see more clearly? What does that feel like? There is a stream about half way along my morning walk that flows from the upper side of the road, under it, and then it comes out close to where I am walking. The sound is strong and vibrant, this water racing from upper places, passing through gardens, under roads, through this piece of forest and then in a short distance venturing out into open waters. It is a life giving patch along the route to work. Yet it is completely hidden from my view - invisible to my eyes but so seen by my ears and sense of smell. A whole symphony of sound is ‘visible’ through a multitude of birds whose songs I can hear when there are no vehicles coming by.
In those places where we feel unseen, and our heart and soul seem invisible to others, there is a bruising and soreness. I, at least, tend to feel my imperfections deeply in places of seeming invisibility. My Angel Trumpet flower made me think of how I see this flower through its fragrance - bruised areas and very perfect areas combined. My walk caused me to ponder how many things affect me deeply and bring such beauty yet my eyes are not what sees them.
Perhaps those places of invisibility in my own pilgrimage of life are also the points which call me more deeply, richly, and wildly into the contemplative life where God will teach me to ‘see’ more clearly.
“Open your eyes and there it is! By taking a long and thoughtful look at what God has created, people have always been able to see what their eyes as such can’t see: eternal power, for instance, and the mystery of his divine being.”
3 comments:
Your writing is such a full and alive breath of air for me. As are you.
What an exquisite post, Steph. I'm with Anj. I feel like I just took a deep breath of fresh air. You walk to work sounds absolutely lovely. And you're right. I need to engage my senses more in order to discern the Divine all around me.
Sometimes it is our breath that is missing in these hard places it seems.
Anj, perhaps one of the gifts of friendship is how it breathes into us and that is certainly true of our journeying.
Candy - walking is so meditative isn't it and now that the rainy season is on here it makes it more difficult but it is certainly a place to seek and find the Almighty in surprising ways.
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