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The world is a stunning place.  Extremes are far more the norm than the exception.  Good and bad.  Pretty and ugly.  Attractive and repelling.  Most of the time we don’t see it.  It is as if we have pushed the ordinary so far out of our lives that we fail to see just how often life touches us.  We are caught in a web of our own making, unable to see what is here, untouched by the hands of God and gods reaching out to us, unwilling to break free to really live. 
 
It is an indictment which strikes at the heart of my journey.  I can’t speak for you, yet I find moments when gifts of God break through and touch my life.  I am stunned when this happens.  I have no particular reason to expect it.  I certainly do not deserve it.  I often catch myself resisting any weakness  I might have that would lead to observing, opening myself up, and simply experiencing.  Yet at the heart of it all God pushes on.
 
On a bright, sunny, and cold autumn morning I find myself catching glimpses of the God in action.  In a different time and place the words would have gone like this; “Wilderness and desert will sing joyously, the badlands will celebrate and flower—like the crocus in spring, bursting into blossom, a symphony of song and color.  Mountain glories of Lebanon—a gift. awesome Carmel, stunning Sharon—gifts.  God's resplendent glory, fully on display.  God awesome, God majestic.”  (Isaiah 35.1, 2) 
 
In New York, you could speak of unspeakable colors reflecting on the city at sunset.  You could remind others of the way music touches one’s life from the inside out.  Everything would come into play; friendship and food, the sense of someone close to your heart even as thousands of miles separate you from them, and of the longing for extended moments of peace you glimpsed momentarily.  It’s all around your life and mine.  God is reaching out – in all circumstances, no matter what else is going on.  It’s incredible.