Dear Reader:

Yesterday I finished the blog post by observing that sometimes we need to stop and look up (the balloons caught in the tree)…you never know what you might see and looking up helps us climb over obstacles. Now I have decided to take my own advice but climb up instead of look up… In fact from up high I look down.  It is amazing how it changes everything.

I climbed up the newly constructed (this past summer) stairs to the apartment over the potting shed and went out on the balcony to look down on the foggy early morning garden below me. What is it about adding height to a situation that gives us new “lenses” to look through?

I was never able to “see” the outline of my garden until I first added the deck to the house…and with just two or three feet of additional height…suddenly my perception changed…visualization took root and with Anne’s suggestions…the garden path began that day.

In the Bible Jesus seeks higher places to be alone or with a chosen few to gather his thoughts and then deliver them like the Sermon on the Mount. In scripture tiny Zacheaus climbed a sycamore tree to get a better glance of Jesus…looking down upon Him  and nothing was ever the same again.

Source: Faithlife Sermons “The Mountain Perspective” (excerpts) Glenn Pease

“Little Zacheaus climbed up a sycamore tree because he could see Jesus from a new perspective, and that climb gave him a glimpse that changed his life forever. Seeing Jesus from a more lofty height is a life-changing perspective.

Mountains give us two different perspectives that help us see life differently. When you are high in them, you can look down and see the awesome scene below, and when you are below you can look up and see the awesome scene of their heights. Either way you look, up or down, you can see what cannot be seen the same from any other perspective.”

“God is saying something to all His people by revealing so much of His will and truth from the mountain top. What He is saying is that our perspective determines our perception, or, in other words, our stand point determines what we see.

Why do men and women climb mountains? It is not just because they are there, but because of what they can see from there. Why do men and women blast off into space? It is because they can see the whole world from a unique perspective. They can see how the laws of nature work differently in that weightless environment. Everything looks different from the heights.”

In the low country we have to try a little harder to get a height perspective but yesterday morning…in the foggy haze I was able to look down on the tree house, as well as, the garden and back yard. Everything looked orderly and well-thought-out…a different sense of sight than the level everyday analysis…where vision is limited by curves in the garden path.

Luke helped me pull down dead limbs from the trees in the back yard late Sunday afternoon so yesterday (Monday morning) everything looked so more open and dead branches no longer blocked the tree house from sight.

I could also see the wild flowers blooming off the scraggly tall shrubs mixed in among the camellia bushes…so beautiful.

Strangely, from my new height advantage, I realized that wisteria was now hanging so low it was softly touching the roof corner of the house.

” Jesus was the main mountain climber of the New Testament. He saw life from a mountain perspective, and he saw people that way as well. He saw their hidden potential to climb far higher than where they were. We are to have the mind of Christ Paul said, and that means a mountain top perspective on life and people.”

So until tomorrow…All of us need to elevate our potential of hidden talents and passions. We can do this by climbing the mountains within each of us to reach our God-given peak.

The best poem has not yet been written.

The best song has not yet been sung.

The best drum has not yet been smitten.

The best bell has not yet been rung.

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh