Jake: One month, eight months

Dear Reader:

Shakespeare once wrote in a line from his play Hamlet: (Conversation between Hamlet and Horatio)

“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” 

– Hamlet (1.5.167-8), Hamlet to Horatio

Basically Hamlet was expressing his belief to Horatio… that the universe is so much more than we mere mortals, with our limited understanding and learning, can possible absorb.

The older I get the less I know…because I grasp now just how infinite the world and heavens around us really are… simply put: mind-boggling!

It is strange how we, and believe me I am including myself in “we,” turn an almost blind eye to daily subtle changes…like the grand-babies turning over for the first time or sitting up or walking…or the older grandchildren getting taller each visit and expressing opinions. These changes we handle quite easily.

All it takes is a sudden change… like a neighbor or friend telling us he/she is moving and we are completely thrown off-kilter…we can’t imagine the neighborhood without them and we grow uncomfortable with the thought that others might move.

Change is going on constantly…but it just takes our “constant security blanket” to change (perhaps a job closing down, a well-loved pastor leaving or retiring, a child going off to college….and our stress level hits maximum capacity in a matter of seconds.)

The “sage of science,” Carl Sagan, expressed it more universally….the ever-changing metamorphosis of daily life.

“We go about our daily lives understanding almost nothing of the world. We give little thought to the machinery that generates the sunlight that makes life possible, to the gravity that glues us to an Earth that would otherwise send us spinning off into space, or to the atoms of which we are made and on whose stability we fundamentally depend.

Few of us spend much time wondering why nature is the way it is; where the cosmos came from, or whether it was always here; if time will one day flow backward and effects precede causes; or whether there are ultimate limits to what humans can know. What is the smallest piece of matter. Why do we remember the past and not the future. And why there is a universe.” (Carl Sagan…quotes)

Besides the grandchildren…it is my garden which teaches me about the things in my life that are changing each day when I return each morning. Besides the obvious….new plants and buds blooming…old plants dying….more subtle changes are taking place with color and texture….besides just growth.

Remember the three red Japanese maples named for each of the three grandsons….all looking pretty similar…especially in comparison with Eva Cate’s delicate looking green leaf maple?

Well…a few days ago…I looked at each tree and saw the most beautiful color changes taking place inside each tree….let me show you. (All I can figure out is it must have something to do with the amount of sun and shade each tree is getting…because everything else is similar in the amount of water…pruning…etc. )

1) First… let’s look at Rutledge’s tree: The red is dazzling when the sun’s rays hit it just so….almost sparkles in its intensity of color.

2) Just a few feet away… around a slight bend…is Jake’s tree….now turning beautiful speckled colors of green and red…soft and luscious….and big…like Jake.

3) And finally Lachlan’s tree…still small but growing fast…speckled like Jakes’s but a much deeper red/green…it stays in the shade longer than the others.

Just a few weeks ago…all three trees were exactly the same color and now each one is changing according to its soil and sun and shade.

Doesn’t God just blow you away? He is definitely a “Detail God.” He must laugh at us for all the time we take (from our short lifespan) trying desperately to ‘bar the doors’ to our home and family against the monster “Change.” Of course…it always turns out to be a lesson in futility and change…of perspective.

In hindsight…don’t we usually look back and see that this or that change (that we so desperately fought)…turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to us…a new path with new opportunities?

So until tomorrow…Thank you Father for guiding us through the maze of changes in our lives that lead us back home to You… having lead a purposeful life.

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

* It will be interesting to see when I return home Thursday….how the lantana will have grown and spread (it had just popped up earlier in the week) * This photo was taken last Sunday.