not just a sky.

since 4:00 this afternoon, clouds have been taking over the sky. all shades of gray and purple, all with varying densities of mood and saturation. they came rolling in quietly with the sunset, and then picked up their speed as it darkened. i've been watching as brown and clinging leaves that have weathered Autumn and early Winter at last surrender to change, releasing quickly from their branches. i'm sitting here on the balcony of our apartment, watching the earth foreshadow it's next move... it is beautiful and incredibly suspenseful... and God created this.

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i went out driving for a little while yesterday, with nowhere to go and nowhere to be (the best kind of drive). my only intention for the drive was that i would at some point roll down the windows, outstretch my arm, and feel the wind against it. i have been sick the past few days, so i've been spending a lot of time at this apartment - thinking and praying and reading good books... and as it should always be when you read a good book (such as my current choice, "Through Painted Deserts" by Donald Miller), truth often rises from its pages, and a certain urgency and excitement begins to rise up within you... and you have to go get in the world. you have to go drive in it, you have to breath it in, experience it or start making plans to do so very soon.

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so... there i was reading yesterday. and then i was driving with my hand out the window - no music playing, just honestly and intently enjoying this life and trying to capture the wind in the palm of my hand. there is something about that feeling... the palm of your hand, resisting... briefly sustaining. letting go.

- - -

something in the air today has me thinking of change, and stages, and seasons. everything physical around me is seeming to find its best description in a metaphor of something not physical at all... everywhere i look, something is either growing or struggling beneath the soil. love is blooming, minds are enriched, habits are nurtured, expectations are pruned, fruit is being harvested. the clouds roll in, the rain pours down, the thunder grumbles... and it means something. the sun comes out again, the birds begin to sing, the earth feels refreshed... and it means something.

and as i sit here watching the lightning from my safe little balcony, i wonder.

i wonder about all the times that i look at the sky and only see a blank space... when the wind is an annoyance, when the rain is inconvenient, and when all i think about when i'm driving is where i need to be in 15 minutes.

and if life really is a collection of seasons, of stages, of change... and if there really is beauty to be found in all of this, and meaning to be understood... how many of those moments do i waste, because it takes effort to connect with what is going on beneath the surface of the soil i can see? it takes effort, and a trust in something more, for a heart to engage beyond what the brain can comprehend...

and it just makes me wonder -

if i'm only always seeing the sky as blue space,

and if i'm only seeing the rain as precipitation...

then when I pray to see God's presence in my life... what am i expecting to see?

He has been here all along.