These two sort of run together. Why? Well, I was out of town last week, enjoying a new place to be, a new sky, in a place I had never before been. So this week and last week have a lot to do with the "new" and with the "small."
As I was standing atop Kitt Peak at the National Observatory in Arizona, I looked out onto the landscape below...and there was a lot to look at. And it just kept going. Back East, there's a mile or two usually, at best, and then either the haze of moisture in the atmosphere clouds everything up.....or there's a mountain in the way, a city, a trees, an entire forest...there is something in the way. In the Arizona desert, this is not so. There's just a vast expanse of the mesa, cluttered with scrub grass and brush. You can see everything, for miles. It's gorgeous. And so very big. It reminds me of how small I am, in relation to the world. My problems may seem large to me, but in the whole of human existence, my problems aren't worth mentioning.
That perspective is, I think, important to remember. We can become overcrowded in our thinking, sometimes, and so obsessed with the world from our own point of view that we forget to look at life from a different perspective - even though this is what we are called to do in faith. Our problems, really, are not a big deal in the grand scope of things. They are small things....even though they may seem insurmountable. We do amazing things daily. Constantly. if we, as small as we are, can do such amazing things and overcome our problems, imagine what we can become.
We can be remade. We can be renewed. In that renewal, we can find ourselves, and we can find, always at work behind the scenes, the hand of God.
So what does it take to renew me? When do I feel God's presence in my life? What do I do when I feel that presence, and how does it help (or hinder) my renewal? How do I ask for renewal, and why? How do I approach opportunities for that renewal? Do I challenge myself?
Lent is a time for renewal. Renewal in the spirit, in faith, in love. It comes in the smallness of moments, the little things, that still small voice that speaks to us all, if only we have the courage and willingness to listen.
Thanks for reading,
Me
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