![Green](http://givenscreative.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Green-300x200.jpg)
This morning I almost decided NOT to go on the long Sunday morning walk around Creve Coeur Lake that has recently become my habit. It was gray, dreary and a bit cold after raining much of the night, although it wasn’t raining at the moment as I stared out of my bedroom window at the deck and the yard and the woods beyond. What the heck, I finally thought, the worst that could happen is that I’ll get a little wet. I got dressed and drove the quick few miles to the park.
My soundtrack for much of the walk was Rich Mullins’ wonderful and eclectic “A Liturgy, a Legacy and a Ragamuffin Band” album, which begins with the late-Mullins mumbling into the studio microphone: “Bear with me everybody, I’m barely ready to do this…” I felt sort of the same. But let’s move on, I thought.
The first part of the walk was as dull as the steel-gray lake surface reflecting the cloudy and overcast sky above. “Just keep your head down and walk,” I thought to myself, “it’s good exercise, but not so much about the view today.” I circled my way through the woods along the back stretch, walked the length that runs under the highway overpass and finally came to the long homestretch about three-quarters of the way around the approximately 4-mile loop.
About that time, Mullins’ “The Color Green” came in through my ear buds. It is perhaps my favorite song for walking through nature and includes these picture-painting lyrics:
Be praised for all Your tenderness by these works of Your hands,
Suns that rise and rains that fall to bless and bring to life Your land.
Look down upon this winter wheat and be glad that You have made
Blue for the sky and the color green that fills these fields with praise.
No blue sky today, I thought. But then I looked, perhaps for the first time that day, at the green. The green of the grass and the trees exploded into my vision and I was taken aback by the utter beauty and contrast of the wet green against the coldness of the rest of the landscape. I woke up, it seems. It’s not drab, I thought, it’s just God telling me to remember that beauty lies all around us, all the time, if we’ll only wake up and pay attention.
And then, as if on cue from the great director in the sky (and I kid you not nor do I exaggerate the perfect timing on this), there was a flash of brown and white in the corner of my right eye. I turned my head just in time to see a bald eagle gliding to rest on a tree branch not 50 feet in front of me, clutching in its talons two (two!) approximately two-pound fish, obviously and recently pilfered from the lake. My hand went to my chest. I could not move. Seriously, God?
“Seriously, Steve. This is what I do, day in and day out.”
Ask yourself in silence: When was the last time you were totally caught off guard by the wonder and power of God?
Note: As I was writing this, I searched online for the lyrics to the song to double check them, and while I was there ran across this video of Rich Mullins singing the song while walking through a drab, gray Irish landscape, with contrasting scenes in black and white and vibrant color. Great minds and all that. Enjoy the video by clicking on the highlighted text above.
4 comments On Today’s Word: Green
O God, our amazing God, so full of surprises, so attentive to our needs, …if only we care to notice!
What a beautiful sharing Steve! I am sure we are all glad that you did not miss THAT Sunday walk…!
Best Wishes,
Anthony.
No matter what the daylight brings on any given day, I marvel at the majesty of God’s creation. I don’t care if it’s sunny, cloudy, raining, snowing or whatever. I’m just thankful that I’m able to spend one more day on this earth. I just adjust accordingly and deal with what comes my way. When I consider that fact that I may not have seen a new day ever again, I’m grateful that I’m still around.
Thanks so much! Yes, God is full of surprises, and you express that so beautifully. Wow!
Dark and dreary, gray and damp, bright and sunny – as Jim Davis rightly wrote, we embrace it all and are thankful that we are still around to enjoy the scenery and we offer them up in gratitude to our Lord and God. And yet what remains constant through it all is the greenness of the grass, of the leaves, no matter the inclemency of the weather. Smell the grass after a shower. No perfume can match its freshness!
How fresh and constant is the Love of our Father.
God Bless.
Lily Lee