Noticing

I saw a headline this morning about the solar eclipse we experienced yesterday. It read, "A Divided America Agrees on One Thing: The Eclipse Was Awesome." There was something about this natural phenomenon that made many of us look up in awe and wonder, stopping for a few minutes. Whether you were with a great crowd of people or by yourself at home, it was something we all experienced together. There's not much like that these days, when it seems so many of us have such different points of view and ways of seeing and experiencing the world.

How often do you stop and wonder at the natural world around you? Those of us with small children in our lives probably do this more regularly than others. When was the last time you stopped to admire a perfectly shaped leaf, or see how the bare branches break up the sky into strangely shaped puzzle pieces? So often we're so concerned with where we're going that we forget to stop and notice where we are. 

Lately I've been trying to simply notice more. I took a picture last week that, to me, perfectly encapsulates spring in the Midwest. There were green leaves shooting out of a thin layer of snow next to an orange traffic cone, because nothing says spring like road construction!  Normally I would have walked right by the scene, but the green leaves stubbornly poking through caught my attention that particular day. 

What might it feel like to take a moment today to stop and look around, to see what it is that you notice? Where might God be softly speaking to you? What small delight might you have otherwise overlooked?

May our senses be open to notice the things we might otherwise pass by. Amen.