One of the reasons we tend to be a little dull to the wonder all around us is that it’s all around us.
It’s what C.S. Lewis said about the fish: It doesn’t know it’s wet. Our problem is our wonderful abundance. We get used to it.
I like Robert Lewis Stevenson’s little ditty:
The world is so full of a number of things,
I’m sure we should all be as happy as kings.
To that I could add:
But kings are concerned with so much of the fuss
They could wish to be happy as us!
But that’s not my point, rather that we are wading around in abundance. There’s so much, we miss it, if we don’t take a longer look . . . a look through the a lens of wonder.
A wonder-lens.
Speaking of lenses, the camera helps. Among the plethora of normal life in wonderland, with a camera we isolate one thing, one view. Regardless of a plan for the picture, just taking it gives us a moment’s appreciation of beauty, of uniqueness, of wonder.
It’s stopping and cropping.
Seeing more by seeing less.
Another thing: Every view we take in we own. Not that we can take it only for ourselves, or hide it, or hoard it. It might be everybody else’s as well; but it’s ours for the seeing, for the moment.
And there’s pleasure in that, too, if we’ll see it.
Take a look around. You’ll find your riches abound.
Golden Hills, 44″x44,” acrylic on canvas . . . one of a zillion things I could have used to illustrate this subject. Painted from memory of California drives through hills of golden grasses and Live Oak in sap greens. Always wonderful. Just a look, and I know I’m rich.
Our Lives Together
Its About Life
10:12 am
Oh my…aren’t we though…our Father God is completely generous to us! May we not waste it indulging our every whim but build up His kingdom for His honer and glory with our “talents”!
9:07 am
Thanks Hyatt; as always your snippets are a stimulus to consider, wonder, reflect, so, thank you again.
Walking with a friend who is a physical therapist,she commented, “Roger, you are walking with your head down. you need to raise you head and look ahead, not down.” Whether I am literally or figuratively looking down, I am missing the beauty around me, that stimulus to wonder. Nature and lives may be messy, ragged, senic, or colorful, yet always there is beauty to see along with the challenge to alter our paradigm to let the riches around us invade us.
9:30 am
Hyatt you are speaking as a true artist. Noticing all the beauty ever changing out there … such a gift to us. Slowing down as most of us by these unusual circumstances has helped me stop and enjoy it even more. The best things are free.
1:54 pm
Absolutely beautiful! I hope you and Anne are staying safe!
With love,
Rhonda
5:12 pm
Thank you for that! ……..and think it is safe to say that the Lord has used you and Anne to open our eyes to beauty and riches all around us. Thank you!
4:21 am
“A wonder-lens” … beautiful
Taking pictures… cropping…
“Seeing more by seeing less.”
Yes! To all this truth. Yes, I say!
And to this line of truth, “But kings are concerned with so much of the fuss
They could wish to be happy as us,” I say, Please do write more at another time. I would like to read.
Your grateful friend, Kerry
7:41 am
Love Love Love.
11:26 am
Beautifully written with a world of meaning to me. Thank you.
2:02 pm
Beautiful, Hyatt! Yes. It’s all a matter of perspective isn’t it? And seeing, Really seeing. And finding the wonder we had as kids. Love the painting.