"Stop and smell the roses."
How often is that spoken (or yelled) out of a place of anger or frustration?
To me, that is a tragedy.
I used to think that I was a simpleton.. that literally taking in the smell of the roses as I walked by a bush (or at the supermarket) made me look corny... or just sitting at the foot of the ocean: so enraptured by the sound and smell and its deafening roar (no matter the size of the tide) made me look like someone who should really be somewhere else, doing something more important...Or to just take a deep breath when walking to Panera for my mid-morning breakfast: just because it smells like Spring. To smile at a child as her or she runs to (or let's be honest, away from mom or dad... :) But lately, lately I have just been sensing these moments as gifts from God: gifts to be unwrapped and enjoyed.
Reading today from Brennan Manning's, "The Ragamuffin Gospel" just reiterated what He has been implanting in my soul... Here is an excerpt:
"By and large, our world has lost its sense of wonder. We have grown up. We no longer catch our breath at the sight of a rainbow or the scent of a rose, as we once did. We have grown bigger and everything else smaller, less impressive. We get blase and worldly-wise and sophisticated. We no longer run our fingers through water, no longer shout at the stars or make faces at the moon. Water is H20, the stars have been classified, and the moon is not made of green cheese.... We barely notice the cloud passing over the moon or the dewdrops clinging to the rose petals...[and] We rake up every leaf as fast as it falls.
So often we religious people walk amid the beauty and bounty of nature and we talk nonstop. we miss the panorama of color and sound and smell.
Living by the gospel of grace leads us into what Teilhard de Chardin called 'the divine milieu'-- a God-filled, Christ-soaked universe. A world charged with the grandeur of God. How do we live in the prsence of the living God? In wonder, amazed by the traces of God all around us."
Sometimes I just long to go for a walk by a river....through a garden... through the woods. To imagine, to dream, to just be. Why is that to just sit and be still and just be is frowned up? We mustdo. We must watch or we must ... well, whatever it is of course, we must. But I feel called to do more than just do and must: I feel called to just be. To observe. To soak in. And most of all, to enjoy. I'll leave us with one of my favorite prayers of all time:"Dear Lord, grant me the grace of wonder. Surprise me, amaze me, awe me in every crevice of Your universe. Delight me to see how Your Christ plays in ten thousand places, lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not His, to the Father through the features of men's faces. Each day enrapture me with Your marvelous things without number. I do not ask to see the reason for it all; I ask only to share the wonder of it all."
-Rabbi Joshua Braham Heschel
