Look Up

I sat on the edge of the unfinished deck, the ground about thirty feet below my dangling legs. I stared
out at the mountains all around me, rolling out far as I could see. The morning mists still clinging to
the tops of the trees. It was late October and the leaves were burning their fire engine reds and brilliant
oranges. As the hills rolled away from me they slowly lost the bright reds, oranges and yellows as
slowly faded into the light blue that gave these mountains their name.

My eyes slowed poured over each rock, tree and hill. I studied each curve and complex angle. Once
again I tried to commit this beauty to memory, knowing that I would fail and not caring. Knowing that
the very next time I looked out on these ancient hills my breath would be taken away again.

I had lived in the mountains of North Carolina for more than two years yet I could never get enough
of the views. I had even taken a construction job to be outside more often, clinging to the sides of
unfinished million dollar homes, to soak in the million dollar views.

A coworker slapped me on the back pulling me from my silent reverie. “Time to get to work,
perfesser.” he shouted at me. He was a typical construction worker. Simple. Maybe three teeth. His
name was John but he went by the name Red, both because of his once red hair and because he was a
proud self proclaimed redneck.

“Sorry Red, I was just admiring the view…Hey, you’ve lived here forever, when do you think I’m going
to get sick of these views?” I asked him.

He took off his hat, spit and squinted off into the distance. After a long pause he finally replied “They
never stop being beautiful, we just forget to look up.”

We live in a remarkably fast paced society. A world of smart phones and tablets and flat screens. It
often seems like everything is pulling at our attention at once. We operate at this breakneck pace, get
up (did I sleep enough?), go to work, fight traffic, hit the drive through (it’s unhealthy I’ll start the diet
tomorrow), get home, maybe watch a couple of hours of TV, fall asleep in front of the TV, better go to
bed…all to wake up and do the same thing tomorrow.

In this frenetic jungle of distraction, where is God?

He waits patiently for you and I to stop, breath and remember…He never stops being loving, gracious,
generous, beautiful, we just forget to look up.

We stare so intently at our man made distractions, these glowing rectangles that dominate our lives we
miss the beauty in the created world. This amazing work of art crafted in the hands of the master artist.

The evening news tells me the world is terrible. The perfectly painted talking heads tell me that the
government is terrible, human beings are not worth saving, everything is awful and scary and always
will be.

Our God is not like this. He does not demand our attention like a passive aggressive harpy. He does not
plead for us to notice Him like in the worst co-dependent toxic relationship. He tells me there is beauty
in the world. Beauty in the heart of another human. There is light and life and beauty and joy here now
with Him, if I simply don’t forget to look up.