Looking Deeper

I was thinking about pictures I could post on our blog, and an unexpected one came to mind. It’s what we see from our front window. Lots of wires, crowded houses, fleets of cars—even a kayak on a roof—with a small patch of sky in the middle. Unless we stand on the outer edge of our porch, turn left, and look very hard, we have no evidence that we are 300 feet from a beautiful beach. Metaphor: Sometimes life seems to close in around us. All the details of getting through each day press in and are the most prominent things in our view. But beyond all that is glorious beauty.

 Sometimes when I look out the window my eyes don’t even see the mess in the foreground. I’ve learned to push past it and only see the patch of sky. It’s not until I look at the cold reality of the photograph that the tangle of wires, the jagged pavement of rooftops, the jumble of everything stored outside come into view.

 All that stuff has purpose. The people who own it use it. They obviously value it. The fact that it blocks our view is of very little importance. The good news is that I can understand the viewpoint of the neighbors and the value of their beachfront property, and let the minor inconvenience of our view stay in its proper perspective.

 There are rewards in being able to look beyond what closes in on us. Because we know what’s on the other side, we also know the claustrophobia it can cause does not represent reality. And once in a while, something magical happens in the clouds, and that little patch of sky becomes a wonderland. That patch is where reality lives.