Perspective - Finding Beauty in the Plain Places

Lately, the Lord has been teaching me a lot about perspective. This morning as I walked by the river, I glanced down at this plain little decaying leaf and something about it intrigued me. I felt the Father's prompting to pick it up. It was very plain. As I walked on, holding the fragile leaf, I approached a little enclave with a park bench which sets nearly under the noisy bridge and the flowing river... what a juxtaposition. 

That bridge which is every morning cluttered with vehicles busily trying to get where they need to go carries me to my studio. I usually stop, darting out of the long line and pull into the park so I can have a few minutes of rest-searching for my day. Today rest found me as I was sitting on the bench studying the busy-ness of the bridge and the way the current flowed around the bridge columns. I could only think of how bland everything looked. It's a hot humid morning and the river smells bad and the traffic is noisy. I think about how we pollute our world and my heart longs for a mountain barely touched, a river rarely seen. I think about how it would be nice to vandalize the bridge columns and paint beautiful patterns there. My imagination runs wild with thoughts of how one... okay, of how I, may be able to paint the columns.... perhaps from a small boat or swinging from a tethered harness.... It would be some feat to bring beauty to the river under the bridge right here in the River Arts District of Asheville. I come back to reality and smile at my outlandish thoughts.... always thinking the impossible.... always seemingly caught up in the things that are too big to easily accomplish. 

I look down at my hands and ponder why I do this, and my eye is drawn to the leaf again... poor little ugly thing. I look closer. Why has this one found me this morning? I hold it up to the light and my perspective shifts. My spiritual eyes awaken. The yellow of the leaf comes into its radiance and the dance of light comes through the empty spaces of the decay. Beauty in the ugly. Radiance in the plain. Life in the death. I suppose it is all about our perspective. How we look at things... and whether we choose to search for the beauty.