Beauty on a stick

I'm still thinking about refreshing. I was recently on a trip which was thankfully refreshing. I was outdoors a lot in a wild and beautiful place. Being in touch with nature does something very good for the soul. It is refreshing to view God's handiwork on display, to stop and reflect that our days are few and the only things that really matter have a lot to do with how I treat others. It is refreshing to come to the end of the day exhausted with honest effort and to appreciate God's handiwork displayed in you. It is good to lay down the accumulated cares of the day, and to never take them up again.

One thing that struck me as I was away from my daily routine: I and the members of my party took a lot of pictures. The setting was visually stunning - towering mountains, rushing waters channeled by boulders and cliffs, alpine meadows, forests with wild flowers and fauna. (Including wild trout. I am happy to say I saw a lot of wild trout, but not all of them were as happy to see me.) All recorded with the touch of a button, immediately saved on my camera's memory stick. As I thought about it, I came to realize something deeper was going on.

More than the impressive visual display, we were trying to capture the moment. I didn't so much want to record the view as to record the feeling the view created in me. I wanted to capture the beauty, and I wanted to experience again (when looking at the picture later) the feelings that beauty stirred deep within me. I wanted the beauty on a stick (ok, my camera's memory stick) so I could take it out and feel that feeling again and again and again.

Sounds kind of funny when I say it like that, being so open about something so private. I guess that's the power of a blog. You can bare your soul to another without looking into their eyes. God's creation is a masterly display. Our souls respond to beauty. True beauty refreshes. It's like our eyes have taken something in and, having communicated everything they have seen, they tell us that there are truths they comprehend beyond this material world. In honest and quiet moments we can hear our hearts agree.

All longing for beauty, and all longing for refreshing, are echoes of our hearts crying out for God.