Resurrection Letter No. 18: Stop and Take Notice

 

Dear Good Shepherd and friends,

Do you sometimes feel like you are just going about your day and your life, but you're not really paying attention to what's around you? Maybe it's you, or maybe it's someone you know, but the overall attitude is pretty predictable: when asked "How's your day been?" the response is a glance to the left or right, maybe a look down, and a statement like: "Busy." Or maybe, "It's goin'." Usually there's a sigh or sometimes a tone in the voice that sounds like the person asked is trying to prove something with their response. 

So many times we live as if we're trying hard to prove something to someone. I see it all the time, in others and in myself. For the life of me, I can't figure out who we're trying to prove something to. Maybe it's baggage from our parents or home life growing up. Maybe it's our own sense of inadequacy. Maybe it's the world around us that makes us feel like we have to achieve some invisible barometer of "busy-ness" or whatever. 

I think we've all done this. Whether it's you, or maybe someone else, but there's a sense in which life is just chugging along and there's no time to take it all in. It's just the daily grind demanding and demanding from us. It's like the machine in The Princess Bride that sucks away years of one's life. 

And here's how I see the outcome of this mentality: we stop looking; we stop noticing and enjoying; we stop living. There comes a point where all this striving seems to do is suck away life. 

We're taught to just focus on ourselves, our work, our lists. We inhabit a human-built bubble within a larger world where we little humans act as if we're the creators our reality, a reality where we're over-busy and over-scheduled, running at a frantic pace we can't keep up with unless we consume substances to keep going.

It makes me think of the phrase in Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas: All the noise, noise, noise, noise, noise!" 

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There's a better way: stopping and noticing. Our eyes are made to look outward. Our culture helps us sometimes forget that. 

In the song "The Color Green," Rich Mullins writes to God:

Be praised for all your tenderness by these works of your hands,
suns that rise and rains that fall to bless, and bring life to 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.

These are lyrics of noticing: the sun, the rain, the fields of wheat, the sky, the fields of green. And not just noticing, but truly appreciating. It's not hard to see how Rich's words are just his way of putting in to words what the Psalmist says. Psalm 147:

Sing to the Lord...he covers the sky with clouds; he supplies the earth with rain... (Psalm 147:7-8)

Or maybe Psalm 8:

When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you have set in place, what is humankind that you are mindful of them, the children of humanity that you care for them? (Psalm 8:3-4)

Sometimes I think it's good for us to have a dose of reality: we're not as important as we think we are.

And this dose of reality can lead us to a bit of freedom to lighten up a bit, to ease up, to actually enjoy our days. I'm not trying to make anyone feel guilty, but I think it's worth considering how we go about our days. Research points to the life benefits of this thing we call gratitude. 

Gratitude is not just saying your "thankful" for something. Gratitude is a posture, an outlook, that actually takes the time to take what's good around you, and to appreciate it. It's tough to appreciate when one takes no time to pause and notice in the first place.

When was the last time you stood in silence and looked at the stars? Or when did you last ponder the beauty and creativity of God by observing the tree outside your window? (Some of them are looking particularly stunning right about now.) Or when did you smile at the human person next to you, whether you know them or not? When did you look at a person, or yourself, and think, "She/he is made in the image of God. I'm right now beholding the beauty of a creative God right before my eyes!"

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Let's get really basic. 

God made the color green, as well as your ability to see it. That should blow your mind. Maybe it's blue, yellow, or beige. Whatever your color, if you consider what color is and how our eyes are able to take it in, we should be astounded at the spectrum of colors God has wired into this world. The more physicists discover, the more I am astounded. The human eye is able to see a spectrum of upwards of 10 million shades of color. That's just us. Birds, insects, fish -- they all see things we can't imagine. 

But who takes time to marvel at color? Maybe that's the point. The wonder of color in our world can be and often is easily overlooked. Yet we see it every day. 

God's artistry is right in front of you, this very second. We don't need to gaze at the stars far away (though that also is a very worthy thing to do!). I use orange and other colors of font in this message that you're reading. This is just two of the 10 million possibilities that even my "high tech" computer can't replicate. 

This all makes the computers and "smart" phones that we're so impressed with sort of a "so what" invention. You can see 10 million shades of color if you just take time to take in the world around you. Our smart phones break when we drop them.

10,000,000 shades of color. Crayola can't touch that.

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Color is just one thing. We should be rubber-necking -- foolishly gawking -- at all of the beauty of God's artistry and creativity and wonder all around us, exploding with excitement at what we get to see, touch, taste, and experience every day just by living. 

But too often we overlook. We're too distracted to take the time to notice and take it in. You only live once, right?

And there's more. At least according to the worldview communicated in the Biblical narrative, you and I are the crown of creation.  

Let's put it another way: you and I, your family members, your neighbor down the street -- we are all the most glorious things God has created. 

It goes beyond the wonder and complexity of the human body, or the human brain that operates our lives, yet in many ways cannot be explained. You and I and the person you might see if you look up right now are made in the image of the creator. Everyone around you is marked with the fingerprints of God, as are you. If we'd only let that sink in, many of our problems would likely go away. 

This demands our attention. It demands us to stop for even just a moment every day to let it recalibrate our perspectives. But too often our attention, our interests, our time is spent on the next thing, the next task, meeting some goal. Or we focus our attention on what is often, quite literally, plastic and breakable. On stuff that will be someone else's garbage one day. And in the process, we minimize and neglect what actually has beauty and deep meaning and significance. And we wonder why we so often feel so lonely.

How backward and messed up is that? 

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We and the world around us are gifted with God's artistry -- the same artistry that gifted Michelangelo, the same artistry that is right now decorating our rural landscape with reds, yellows, and oranges and all sorts of shades of those colors. 

Take a moment today to pause, dear reader. Stop and notice what's around you. Don't be in such a hurry. Stop trying to hard to impress.

Just breathe. Notice the people around you more today. Listen more carefully to the intonation and inflection of their voices. Pay attention to the color in their eyes. 

And don't just notice. Find joy in it. Let it overflow in gratitude that you are alive to experience the presence and goodness of God in everything around you, that the human life near you mirrors the wonder of God.

In moments of peace and joy, pause to notice and be thankful. Relish in God's goodness all around you. Celebrate and throw a party.

In moments of stress and chaos, notice the goodness and beauty that's still right around you. Let it give you perspective. Let it remind you that God is life-giving, and brings beauty and enjoyment from formless, dark chaos. 

Even when I'm dying, if I can, I will reach out to touch the hand of the loved one who is nearest. And I will smile, and soak in the physical touch, because I'll be touching for one last time on this earth the hand of someone who displays the wonder of God. And even in death, I'll overflow with gratitude for the gift of such a life. How much more should we do it while we live?

In defiant hope,

Pastor Kyle