Pay Attention
The house had been bulldozed, burnt, and buried weeks ago, and I’d never noticed.
I drove past this home every time I went to our nearby town, and still I hadn’t realized it was gone.
The contractor’s progress in building a bigger, new house a few yards away had distracted me. Am I like the proverbial ravens, attracted to shiny, new objects?
I try to pay attention to the old, the dying and dead,
but do I only notice the sparkling, the new, the contemporary?
Do I neglect to see the beauty and meaning in the small, the quiet, and the ordinary? A new day’s light illuminating grassy seed heads dipped in dew is still a miracle.
The geometry spoken into the heart of a flower is no less perfect because the flower is called a weed.
Are things too small to merit my contemplation, like the millions of dust particles that turned the western sky into a burnished sunset?
Do I look, but do not see? Is it a rebellious heart that overlooks the wondrous that surrounds me?
“Son of man, you are living among a rebellious people. They have eyes to see but do not see and ears to hear but do not hear, for they are a rebellious people. Ezekiel 12:2 NIV
Have I failed to thank the Lord for the vistas revealed this fall because they are so “ordinary.”
Do you have eyes but fail to see, and ears but fail to hear? And don’t you remember? Mark 8:18 NIV
Have I failed to pay attention to the glory at my feet, because it is expressed in common garden flowers and weeds growing in dusty gravel paths?
Have I neglected the everlasting love of God that surrounds me because I wasn’t paying attention?
Pay attention, come close now, listen carefully to my life-giving, life-nourishing words. I’m making a lasting covenant commitment with you, the same that I made with David: sure, solid, enduring love. Isaiah 55:3 MSG
My prayer for us all:
that we may have undistracted eyes to see
the physical beauty, the everlasting love
in all things, old and new, great and small.
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Linking with
Posted on November 6, 2014, in Uncategorized and tagged flowers, pay attention, see. Bookmark the permalink. 6 Comments.
Constance Ann Morrison 
Oh my, Constance! Just a stunning post with beautiful images! Just a delight to my contemplative spirit–thank you! I enjoyed a number of your recent posts, too–just lovely! Your poetic and artistic style is so inviting and thought provoking. Look forward to visiting again!
Joy!
Kathy
Bless you for your kind words, Kathy! I’m glad you enjoyed the photos. Thanks so much for visiting.
Thank’s for the subject of your post. Yes, sometimes we look but we don’t see, we listen but we don’t understand. Jesus knows us and that is why he left us so much advice. We so often forget to see the beauty around us. Provided we can keep our eyes and see and our ears hear ….
I am grateful for God’s grace and forgiveness when we don’t recognize what’s plainly in front of us. Thanks for your encouraging words, Christiane.
Constance, I love the pictures and message you have blessed us with in this post. Amen to your prayer. Sometimes I wonder how much I have missed, but I’m ever grateful for that which I’ve savored.
Blessings ~ Wendy ❀
Thanks so much for your kind words, Wendy! Yes, I’m sure I’ve missed a great deal, too, but I notice more than I used to. Progress in thankfulness!