Just as the sun was about to rise, as it does every other morning. I pulled my laces tight and rugged up just enough not to be cold on an autumn morning. This was the first morning walk I have been on in a while, I traversed our suburban area noticing trees, quiet and serenity that most people probablly miss during the day. As dawn continued to draw closer the birds began to chirp, lorikeets are the noisy flutes that sing in the morning in my area. I say flutes but in reality they sound more like a flute played by a 3 year old who had just picked one up off the floor after it had being dropped and run over by a bus.
This walk eventually took me out of the side streets of suburban Adelaide and landed me in the carpark of our local shopping centre. Here the lights and neon signs shone bright. The light drew me in and made me feel a little safer than walking in the darkness of a dingy side street. However as I walked closer to the lit up car park and looked up I could no longer see the stars. Growing up when family would visit from Hong Kong, one of the key one liners they would always say was that we in Australia have the bluest sky's and stariest nights they have ever seen. It's true, that we have blue sky's and starry nights but I guess I have always taken it for granted.
So as I sat in this car park, jotting down some of my thoughts, I contemplated what it is that attracts us as humans to carparks, street lights and neon signs. As I contemplated deeper I came to the conclusion that this was the wrong question all together. Maybe these things don't actually attract us at all....maybe they are just here to distract us from the vast beauties of the world and universe that is beyond our immediate perception. These lights in our cities illuminate what is before us but they also cloud our ability to wonder about the mystery of the universe beyond that of ourselves and our immediate surroundings. There is a tension to hold here, a balance to be made. We must hold onto the lights that show us the present but also find places in which we can see into the depths of the mystery of the universe, the mystery of God. Humbled is the person who looks up and is in awe of the universe because we remember we are not as big as we might think we are. Lost are those who are blinded by the lights that shine too close to our eyes and distract us from looking beyond what is just immediate. The irony here is that as I type this and write thinking about the distracting nature of a street light, I am also staring into one of the most distracting lights of our current world. I'll let you pause for a moment and think about what that light might be for you right now.
Go outside today, find a quite place, look up contemplate the blue skies, contemplate the stars in the sky.
What mystery lies beyond the world that is just around us?
What does this mystery have to teach us about who is deep in ourselves?
I wonder what we might find as we look up to the sky and ponder the stary night whilst also looking deep into the depths of our own human character and our human soul.
Where do we find God? Is it within us? is it beyond us? Or is it.... just everywhere and no where all at the same time.
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