1) The other morning I returned to the Viera Wetlands after
several rainy days away. I was anxious
to see if all the rain had made a difference.
A week before, the Wetlands had, in places, looked like a desert with
cracked, gray earth and vultures who seemed far too interested in me.
Thankfully, the rain proved to be the living water the
Wetlands needed. I returned to find the
Wetlands transformed. The water levels
were still low, but most of the ground had disappeared under water and lush,
tall grass. It was an explosion of
green. And, much as I had hoped, there
were birds, more birds, herons and egrets dancing through the grass and others,
asleep, curled up on new islands of submerged tree roots.
The high school cross country team was there too. They have become as much a part of the
Wetlands as the deer and the birds and the alligators.
Two girls flew past me—I say “flew,” but really it was a
comfortable jog that just seemed like flying because I move slow enough to make
chasing turtles an adventure.
Up ahead, a sleek, black-furred animal darted across the
road and one of the girls yelled out to the other, “Otter! It’s an otter! Did you see the otter?”
And I smiled, because I appreciated the joy in her voice. Too often these days, I think we judge the
younger generations too harshly. After
all we are all the younger generation to someone. But we judge teenagers in particular as being
too caught up in their phones and social media to pay attention to anything.
They seem to take the world for granted. The sun will rise, the sun will set and in
the in-between time, the world will go on.
But on this morning, as these girls ran, suddenly the world opened
itself up to them. The unexpected
happened—an otter appeared, and the newness of it astounded them.
Think of all the times in the Gospels where Jesus uses
nature in his teachings. He asks you not
to worry because the birds neither sow nor reap. He tells you if you had faith as small as a
mustard seed, you could tell a mountain to move and it would. He warns about the fig tree that doesn’t bear
fruit. He speaks of the shepherd
searching for one last, lost sheep.
Each of these stories has its own meaning, but what they all
have in common is this: Jesus asks you
to pay attention to the world around you.
Take nothing for granted. The answers to your questions, the questions that keep you awake at all hours of the night, are right in front of you, if you just take a second and really look.
2) The skies opened up as soon as I pulled into the Publix
parking lot.
But I was prepared—finally.
A few days before I had spent way too much money on a
raincoat, a real raincoat, not a thin little windbreaker masquerading as a
raincoat.
I threw it on, pulled up the hood and stepped confidently
into the rain.
There’s a real freedom in walking in the rain and knowing
you’re not going to get wet. I mean—I
got a little wet. The raincoat wasn’t a
body suit, but by the time I got inside Publix, I was still mostly dry. I shrugged off my coat and shook out the
rain, feeling quite proud up until the moment when a stray rivulet of water
slid down my sleeve and soaked my t-shirt.
And then I discovered something—the worst thing about
wearing a raincoat is not feeling like you’re wearing a fitted plastic
bag. No, the worst thing about wearing a
raincoat is feeling like you’re wearing a plastic bag over an already wet
shirt.
Sigh.
Some minutes later, shopping completed, I was back in the
car. The rain had stopped and I watched
an osprey fly out over the stoplight where it kept its nest. I watched as the osprey—in mid-air—shook out
the rain from its wings and kept on flying.
The osprey regularly performs amazing physics-defying
acrobatics in the air. Watch them fish,
if you ever get the chance. Watch them
hover, wings flapping so slowly, you wonder why they don’t fall out of the
sky. And then, they do fall, on purpose,
dropping, diving into the water. It’s
crazy. It shouldn’t work, but it does.
More importantly, this particular osprey just sent me a
message: Storms happen. You’re going to get wet. Shake it off.
3) Mosquitoes always follow the rain.
I have convinced myself that the best way to avoid getting
bitten is to always keep moving, as if by making myself a moving target, I will
somehow confuse them.
I am apparently also a believer in the power of positive
thinking.
Both seemed to be working well for me at the Wetlands the
other day, until I took a look at my legs once I got back to the car and
discovered more than a dozen bites.
Gah! I hadn’t even
felt them!
I am stubborn, though, and I am determined. And even when I know that the mosquitoes are
biting, I won’t let that stop me from my morning walk.
But I do have to stop and think. Because when I do pause to take pictures, the
mosquitoes do swarm. And so I have to
consider on especially “buggy” days, is this picture worth a mosquito bite?
I mean, how many pictures of the sunrise do I really need?
But then I notice that the sky has turned an unusual color,
that it appears to be the most hard to define of the rainbow, a deep
indigo—something more than blue, richer and with a hint of violet and something
else … indigo is a different sort of blue.
And there is the sun streaming through the clouds, shoving
the clouds aside with golden rays so pronounced I think that some artist has
slid an animation cell in front of my eyes.
And then I realize that the artist is God.
So I stop and take the picture.
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