From My Nature Journal: Faith Sees

Eyes see the January-barren tree.

Faith sees spring’s leaf buds and blossoms, tastes autumn’s fruit.

Eyes see the storm.

Faith sees life-enhancing rain that refreshes and supples the land.

Eyes see the small, inert-looking speck.

Faith sees all of that tiny seed’s fertile potential.

Eyes see the trail’s steep grade, effort and toil.

Faith sees the panoramic view at trail’s end.

Eyes see flames consuming, ravaging.

Faith sees warmth, light, nutrients and purification.

Eyes see wilderness’s danger and foreboding.

Faith sees its ability to produce recollection, thoughtfulness and intention.

Eyes see glitz, neon lights, goods, attractions, and amusements.

Faith sees their prospective power to damage the spirit.

Eyes see geese in chevron flight moving south for the long winter.

Faith sees a spring return on pacific breeze.

Eyes see little, scanning quickly over natural beauty.

Faith sees the good pleasure of the Creator, and lingers.

Eyes see death, stark and brutal.

Faith sees resurrection, hope springing eternal.

Eyes fail.

Only faith sees.

Marvelous redemption.

Blessed Easter Tomorrow, 
RGM, March 31 2018

Blowin' in the Wind: Inattentional Blindness...

Blowin’ in the Wind is a regular feature on my blog consisting of an assortment of nature writings – hymns, songs, excerpts, prayers, Bible readings, poems or other things – pieces I may not have written but that inspire me. I trust they will do the same for you.

Last week I put up that photo of the nearly invisible whitetail fawn at rest in the grass we came across while leading a nature hike, and the story surrounding its discovery. In my essay, I also briefly alluded to the spiritual issue of failing to see the things that God desires us to see, or hear the things God desires us to hear.

I always appreciate it when either friends or people unknown to me comment, lets me know that somebody is reading these things and enjoying them! Sometimes comments come direct to the blogsite, more often to my Facebook reminder post, and most often via a personal email or face-to-face encounter. Quite quickly after posting last week, I heard via email from a good friend, Monty, a pastor here in Colorado, who happened to be preaching the next day on the same subject. I thought it might creatively expand last week’s spiritual subject. Here is what he said (permission was granted!):

Enjoyed your Naturally... just now.  Reminded me of the many times someone forwards something like that drawing that either looks like an old hag or a beautiful woman, depending on how you look at it... I’m speaking Sunday on the Parable of the Sower and focusing on Jesus' very specific urgings to "Listen!" Here is my intro, after which I segue into ‘inattentional’ deafness:

"Last week I read a blurb about a research group that was studying something they called “inattentional blindness.” They say inattentional blindness occurs when “people fail to become aware of objects unrelated to their current task.” In other words, when we are busy doing one thing we will likely not see or notice what is going

on around us.                                                                                             

"The researchers clipped money on a tree branch overhanging a path about head height and then observed the reaction of the passersby. Here is what happened. 396 people were observed walking down the path. Most failed to see the money, but 94% of those who missed it were distracted by their cell phones... Some of these did not even see the branch until it whopped them in the face.

"The researchers concluded that “becoming aware of an object generally requires focused attention.” I think that means you need to be looking for something in order to see it… When people look at a tree they expect to see leaves so they see leaves… not money. So when they are not intentional, or are ‘inattentional,’ they cannot see the money for the leaves. If they had been told there was money hanging on a tree branch when they began their walk down the path, they would have been looking for it. But because they were not looking for money they did not see it. Inattentional blindness…

"We generally see what we are focused on seeing or expecting to see, but inattentional blindness is exacerbated when we our attention is focused on something totally unrelated to what we are doing.

"Earlier this week I looked across Agate Lake, the same lake I looked across last year. The same stand of dead trees I saw last year stood in a gap between the greenery along the opposite shoreline. But this time, in the morning sunlight I could see what looked to be an old white house with four windows… in the five years we have gathered there in that same spot no one had noticed the house hidden behind the stand of dead trees. Suddenly we could all see it because now we were looking for it. Otherwise we had been inattentionally blind to it.

"I wonder if there is also such a thing as inattentional deafness…"

Thanks, Monty. Couldn’t agree more. Even stumble along in that blindness myself sometimes, so I wish I could have been there to hear the rest of the sermon!

~~RGM, July 16 2014

From my Journal: Enhanced Night Vision

It is late. At the end of the dock I sit and shut off my flashlight. One by one the stars present themselves on a moonless summer night, my eyes growing accustomed to the darkness.

First I spot the biggies: the seven stars of the Big Dipper, and, trailing the arc of its handle, the astonishingly bright Arcturus in the constellation Bootes; to the south, red Antares, the heart of the Scorpion; directly overhead, the asterism of the Summer Triangle – Vega in Lyra, Altair in Aquila the Eagle, and Deneb in Cygnus the Swan. Within moments it seems these pinpoints of light no longer present themselves one by one but a hundred by a hundred: Draco the Dragon; Sagittarius the Waterbearer and a coincidently nearby Jupiter; the body detail of Ursa Major, the Big Bear, in which the Big Dipper lies; the asterisms Northern Crown and Northern Cross; even the dim and diminutive dolphin Delphinus. I begin to see satellites, coursing usually northerly, some so dim they can only be seen with averted vision against a seemingly motionless backdrop. Finally comes what I have been hoping for, the crowning joy of the night sky, the test of what constitutes, for me, a truly good night of seeing: the 
Milky Way begins to slowly 'reverse fade' into view;

The Big Dipper in the
constellation Ursa Major

eventually I see it spanning the length of the sky from 
horizon to horizon, from north of Queen Cassiopeia 
to horizon’s end south of the Teapot.

All the stars were showing immediately when I shut the light off several minutes ago, but I could not see them. It is my eyes that needed adjustment. My pupils had contracted indoors to protect my eye’s sensitive rods from light’s intensity. And now as they 
dilate in the dark, they gather dimmer light as a larger telescope would, and I am able to see clearly things formerly not visible just moments ago. It seemed near pitch black blindness when the flashlight went out, but as my eyes have adjusted to the darkness I sense enough light to not only move around the dock without falling in, but to leave the light in my pocket and take a walk, or push out over black water for a midnight paddle.

The light shines in the

darkness, and the darkness

has not overcome it.

(John 1:5)

There is light in my darkness. My night vision has been enhanced.

Lord, with darkness all around how I need enhanced night vision, a different kind than that I experience sitting here at the end of a dock.

Even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day, for to you darkness is as the light. (Psalm 139:12)

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. (John 1:5)

~~RGM, from an earlier  journal entry,

Adapted for Blog June 11, 2013