A Second Look

The sun was just touching the tops of the trees on the western horizon when I backed the tractor in the shelter and sat for a moment in the stillness.  As I looked into the not so blazing sun, I saw several columns of swirling tornadoes made of small flying bugs.  Hundreds of them.  As they swirled between me and the setting sun, I dismounted and walked close enough to stick my arm into their midst.  And, then, as I walked around so that the sun was to my back, they disappeared.  But, when I went back to the place of facing the sun, they once again appeared.      

There is so much out there not seen.  It has always been that way, but I have not been paying enough attention to see.  Watching this evening show, I could not help but wonder how many blessings of the Creator I had failed to see and know.  Too many I am sure.  Actually, if there is only one missed blessing, it is one too many.  Like this blessing only seen in this day's fading sun, there have been so many blessings of holy presence swirling around me that I have missed simply because I failed to look with eyes given to me, but seldom used.   

Had Mary Magdalene not lingered a few extra moments that Resurrection Morning, she would have missed the greatest of imaginable blessings.  Her first look supposed the One seen to be the gardener.  It was in a morning stilled by holy presence that she saw Him and heard her name in the mist.  Because of that second look, her story has never been the same.  It is no different with us as we pause to look once again only to see the Holy in what had been seen first as invisible.