Seeing the Light

It was almost as if the sun transferred its color and light to a Kansas farm field. Yesterday afternoon as I drove toward an appointment in Stafford, I again saw the riot of yellow "sunshine" to the south of the highway. As usual, I hadn't built in time for a sojourn off the road.

But, on the way home, I decided my groceries would survive a few minutes and my going-to-town shoes could be dusted off later. So I took a brief "recess" from my to-do list.

The canola is in bloom. It's not a crop we've ever grown, and we don't see a lot of it growing in our part of Kansas. (To the farmer: No canola was trampled in the capturing of these images.)

Though the busy highway was only a few hundred yards away and vehicles hummed over rumble strips, I could hear birds singing in the trees around the adjacent farmstead. Insects danced among the yellow blossoms, not tarrying long enough for me to get a photo.

 

But I did tarry, standing in that canary yellow field under a cloud-dotted blue sky, drinking up the beauty of sunlight and shadow,

There is beauty all around us. And it's there whether we take time to notice it or not. Sometimes, it requires a stop along a busy highway.

Sometimes, it requires only a trip down a quiet country road at just the right time.

A Time to Think

In daily life we must see 

that it is not happiness that makes us grateful, 

but gratefulness that makes us happy. 

–Brother David Steindl-Rast
(from Guideposts' devotional email)