‘All that is necessary to make any landscape visible and therefore impressive is to regard it from a new point of view, or from the old one with our heads upside down. Then we behold a new heaven and earth and are born again…’ – John Muir
Sometime, when conditions are just right,
go and stand on the edge of a creek bank
when the sun is bright with morning
gladness and the water still and dark.
Ease your head over the ledge,
just a bit, and see yourself
staring back from the water,
peering upward, at you, beyond you.
Keep looking and notice above you –
beneath you, marvel of marvels! –
the ecstasy of a cerulean sky
dappled with clouds.
Observe the crowns of trees
rooted in the heavens,
drinking deeply of glory.
Notice too the sun, shining up at you,
as if this were the way of things.
Just for a moment,
or several if you can spare them –
and by all means, spare them –
allow yourself to fall skyward
into a world turned upside down.
And consider the curious fact
that this is indeed the way of things:
that in truth we touch the sky
as often as we touch the ground.
Under Christ’s Mercy,
Brent
