Have you ever come across a super artsy blog where one single blog entry may be all about a wonderful cup of coffee the blogger had in the morning and they post several super up-close, artsy pictures of the brewed beverage where you can see the reflection of the camera's light on the little air bubbles that accumulate around the rim of the mug and the camera is angled just right to provide the perfect shadow striking a perfect contrast of light and darkness?
Sometimes I think it is the more artistic, creative people who have an easier time of appreciating the small things in life -of course, there is a difference between appreciating the trivial, seemingly insignificant pleasures in life and appreciating art for the sake of what is considered art.
Life is so full of wonder and excitement and pure joy yet we somehow easily forget this and we let -sometimes rightfully -this world's darkness drown out that joy. A former professor of English Literature at Wheaton College, Dr. Clyde Kilby, pleaded with his class at the end of one of his lectures that they might stop being unamazed by the strange glory of ordinary things and to start seeing things with the new eyes Christ has purchased for them.
Here are some of Professor Kilby's resolutions that I hope I can adopt as my own someday:
I shall not fall into the falsehood that this day, or any day, is merely another ambiguous and plodding twenty-four hours, but rather a unique event, filled, if I so wish, with worthy potentialities. I shall not be fool enough to suppose that trouble and pain are wholly evil parentheses in my existence, but just as likely ladders to be climbed toward moral and spiritual manhood.
I shall not turn my life into a thin, straight line which prefers abstractions to reality. I shall know what I am doing when I abstract, which of course I shall often have to do.
I shall open my eyes and ears. Once every day I shall simply stare at a tree, a flower, a cloud, or a person. I shall not then be concerned at all to ask what they are but simply be glad that they are. I shall joyfully allow them the mystery of what Lewis calls their "divine, magical, terrifying and ecstatic" existence.
At least once every day I shall look steadily up at the sky and remember that I, a consciousness with a conscience, am on a planet traveling in space with wonderfully mysterious things above and about me.
I shall sometimes look back at the freshness of vision I had in childhood and try, at least for a little while, to be, in the words of Lewis Carroll, the "child of the pure unclouded brow, and dreaming eyes of wonder."
I shall follow Darwin's advice and turn frequently to imaginative things such as good literature and good music, preferably, as Lewis suggests, an old book and timeless music.
I shall not allow the devilish onrush of this century to usurp all my energies but will instead, as Charles Williams suggested, "fulfill the moment as the moment." I shall try to live well just now because the only time that exists is now.
