And Today

I woke up this morning to the sound of rain. I love that sound. I woke from a dream of a friend of mine. She was in her garden and was upset that the local school's marching band was marching through her garden every day. In the waking world she lives near a college, so there was a natural (if tenuous) connection to her garden and a marching band.

I took a shower, drank a cup of coffee, ate a bowl of cold cereal (Special K) and dressed for work. Because of the rain I dressed warm - blue jeans, shirt, sweater, boots and my light raincoat. I stopped for a cup of coffee on the way into the office.

I got to the office just about dawn and was sitting there in the parking lot on a telephone call watching the sun come up. It was an unexpected reward. The storm was breaking up and there were patches of blue sky peeking through the gray and tumbling clouds. The high altitude wind was skipping the clouds across the sky at a good clip. The sun would periodically break through and everything would light up, white, gray, gold, orange, blue. It was simply beautiful.

Then, a wild turkey came out of the bushes to the right of me and proceeded to wander across the parking lot. There are trees in little concrete islands in the parking lot and those trees drop some sort of small black berry (tip - never park under the trees). The turkey wandered from tree to tree and seemed to be sampling the berries as she went.

So, I sat there in conversation watching the beautiful storm scattered sky and the wild turkey. It was a beautiful twenty minutes or so. Then, I headed into the office to start to the day. My schedule is fairly light today so I am looking forward to a productive day.

I think one of the great gifts God has given me is the ability to revel in the ordinary. We live in a magical world, full of simple beauty and astounding mystery. Somewhere along the line I learned to simply stop and stare in amazement. I couldn't help but notice this morning the number of people who pulled into the parking lot, got out of their cars and headed into the building without ever looking up at that stunning tapestry of sky unfolding over our heads.

So, where ever you are, who ever you are. Stop. Look up. Take a few minutes and peek into the corners of the universe and see the simple mystery of it all.