I Demand the Beauty of the World

I was sitting in the Big Comfy Chair (It’s not really comfy, but I keep hoping if I call it that enough times, my bony butt will eventually leave an impression in the rock-hard cushion) Sunday afternoon, reading, when a rain shower pushed through.

The room darkened and I looked up from my book and I thought for the first time in a long time, if not ever, I want to sit outside.

I want to sit outside.

Easy request, right?

Except, of course, that it’s raining.

And I live in a condo.

And I don’t own any outdoor furniture, not even a beach chair.

And, because of the medication I’m on, I’m not really supposed to be in the sun, though I do cheat by walking first thing in the morning.  I figure the sun hasn’t woken up enough yet to do any damage. And I must be doing something right because the only person who seems to appreciate my pasty white skin is the dermatologist.

But still, I want to sit outside—in the sun.

I want to squint.  I want to sweat.  I want a book in my lap and my feet buried in the sand.

I seem to want a lot these days.

The other day, a friend of mine said she was thinking about going to see the new Wonder Woman movie.  I told her to drive over and pick me up.

She lives an hour away.

She laughed at me over the phone.  “A little demanding, aren’t you?”

Yes.  Yes, I am.

For the past ten months or so, I have been living on a low calorie diet and walking at least a mile a day.  I don’t walk without pain.  I live with pain, every day, all day.  But the walking and the diet have made a difference in my life in other ways, a miraculous difference—call it a Godly intervention. 

Call it the first step in recognizing that God, like any parent, wants the very best for me.

In the past ten months, I have watched more sunrises than I had seen the previous forty plus years of my life.  I have walked so early, before the sunrise even, that the road has been silent, dark, and empty of traffic.  I have stumbled across possums and other four-legged beasts that appear as mere shadows crossing the road.  I have watched herons fishing and listened to the trumpeting call of the Sandhill Crane.

Of course it hasn’t all been good.  Such is life.

I have cursed both mosquitoes and rain.

And yet, in a way that I know will seem odd, I have felt blessed even on those crazy days when the only cloud in the sky is directly over me and raining, when the mosquitoes swarm and feast.

Because if I am wet and bitten, it is because I am outside.  And there were days, not so long ago, when just walking across the parking lot to check the mail was near to impossible without a cane.

I walk every morning because I remember what it was like to need someone to hold my arm as I walked, because the memory of chronic vertigo still terrifies me, its randomness, its suddenness, its ability to literally knock me off my feet.

I walk today because tomorrow I might not be able to.  Yes, a little bit of fear still guides me, but more often than not, I get up and move and greet the day because I respect everything, good or bad, that the day may have to offer.

This past Sunday, Pastor Debbie spoke, in her sermon, of the times in our lives when we seem to feel God’s absence more than God’s presence.

But when she said those words, all I could think was that we wouldn’t notice God’s absence at all if we didn’t already know God and what that presence felt like.

We can’t miss things we never had, can we?

And so, I think it’s possible to feel blessed even when God seems absent in our lives.  It is possible to feel blessed even during the darkest days.  Darkness gives us perspective.

Of course, the truth is that God is never absent in our lives.  He is the shepherd who never gives up on His sheep.  He is ever-present.  He is ever-loving. 

And precisely because of my struggles, I am able to see this more clearly.

Life is so precious and short.  I don’t want to miss any of it.  I want to sit on the beach.  I want to go to the movies.  I want to take long walks.  I want lunch with friends.  I want … so many things.  I demand them.

As a child of God, I demand the beauty of the world.  I demand the beauty of nature, of friendship, of early morning chocolate.

And so I bought a beach chair on Monday and took it with me to the beach on Tuesday.  I didn’t sit for long.  I had left my sunglasses in the car and the sun was so bright it was as if God, Himself, were lounging in the infinity pool that is the ocean.  It was impossible to look at.

I looked instead at the sand at my feet, at the shells and seaweed, at the crabs scuttling in and out of their holes, at the people walking and running down the beach, at the mist that hung low, clinging to the tide, at painted shells hidden and waiting to be found.

I turned and took a selfie, the ocean behind me, the sun sitting on my shoulder. 

Yes, I was here and it was a beautiful.