It’s nearing 7 a.m., and I’ve been up for several hours. The dogs are noisy, birds are chirping, and it’s still a balmy 37 degrees Fahrenheit. Not a cloud in the sky, and the dew is heavy. Humidity is 100%, and the dew point is 39 degrees.
I’m always searching for things I did not know, or my failed memory banks knew this at one point, but I could not recall. Standing nearly knee-deep in the grasses this morning, I contemplated the opening dawn of Saturday. My dog patiently awaiting my next step, I was content to let my mind wander.
Seeing and experiencing life do not always go hand-in-glove.
I believe we experience life from macro and micro views. If we would comprehend the big picture as distinguished from the smallest viewpoints, we could simultaneously see with a telescope and microscope. Both views could merge into one. One poet began his view as this:
Auguries of Innocence, BY WILLIAM BLAKE
To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour
[and there’s more here]
How you deal with both views says a lot about the person you are, or it should give you a hint at the person you can become. Thinking through the frustrations of a week when I should be celebrating preparation for a new day, I talked sternly to myself to take the macro view and see the bigger picture.
Saturday's Treasures: I believe we experience life from macro and micro views. If we would comprehend the big picture as distinguished from the smallest viewpoints, we could simultaneously see with a telescope and microscope. Both views… Click To TweetThis Mornings News Cycle
Despite all the earth-bound problems we face, a snippet of news floated across my screen, and I had to pause, read, and reflect on the bigger picture of life.
Voyager 1 is 45 years old and approximately 14.5 billion miles from earth. Science dreamed of its technology in the ’60s, and the spacecraft launched in 1977. That’s just three years after we married and the year I traveled to Alaska for the first time. V-ger has been flying through uninhabitable space for nearly as long as I’ve been an “adult.”
Can you imagine the old technology that cannot ever be repaired or replaced? Perhaps a software patch can be sent by signal flares to deal with a problem, but there is no long-term fix for something that is aging rapidly. Voyager 2 was launched just a few months later. Amazingly, both have survived for so long without a tire rotation, oil change, or replacing a burnt-out lightbulb.
Where both of the spaceships are sailing
has never been reached by any human.
They have left the Solar System
and entered the heliopause.
Their nuclear batteries are losing their ability to keep the spacecraft operational. Systems and science equipment have been manually stopped to allow for longer life.
What was the news? V-1 is sending back unexpected results of conditions that cannot possibly exist in the state of its being. Corrupted data? It’s hard to decipher. One-way communication takes nearly 21 hours to reach each other. That’s molasses-slow! You begin to ask your questions with a well-thought-out pattern of words. Skip the flippancy. You interpret the results. Hours and days later, you may ask a follow-up question.
Here’s My Thought This Morning
In the scurried pace of life, you need time to slow down, smell the roses, and bask in the idea of being. That’s what Mac Davis sang just three years before V-1. Yes, that’s the year we married.
It’s almost as if we need to be Moses. Look! That bush is burning, but it’s not consumed! I need to study it for a while. We have several shrubs next to the house called “Burning Bush” because their leaves go a brilliant hue of red as fall appears. From a distance, you might think the bush was on fire!
Let me paint you a picture.
Though Moses is considered the writer of the first five books of the Bible, he appears in the second chapter of Exodus, the second of the five books. The first 80 years of his life are told in a flash of just 25 verses. Then, in the third chapter, life slows down, and we begin to follow Moses through his last 40 years. The life of Moses: 38 chapters of Exodus and the following 97 chapters of reading are found in Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.
We went from a Snapshot view to a canvas painted with varied strokes and colors under many burdens and loads. Then we look at his next chapter of life as a photo album, pages and pages long!
The Deliverer of Israel was born in Exodus 2 and passed off the scene in Deuteronomy 34. Those intervening 120 years establishes the foundation of our Judeo-Christian system. Study it verse by verse (micro) or see the span from then til now (macro.)
This Is Life!
What I say/do/think right now matters in the big scheme of life beyond my years.
Whoa! What? Does the Micro moment matter as much as my Macro view? Yes!
Where will I find the best use of my energies? What I do affects what I become. How I think about something dictates the path I travel. The power of the words I use tells everyone about my uncertainties and certainties. Will all of this reflect poorly, or will it be favored for a blessed life?
There is power in the Micro and Macro!
Solomon tells us about the micro view, but he does not tell us to ignore it.
Catch us the foxes,
The little foxes that spoil the vines,
For our vines have tender grapes.
Song of Solomon 2:15 NKJV
Though Solomon is a complex thinker, it is from his father, David, that we consider the bigger picture and compare it to the micro viewpoint.
To the Chief Musician. On the Instrument of Gath. A Psalm of David.
O LORD, our Lord, How excellent is Your name in all the earth,
Who have set Your glory above the heavens!
Out of the mouth of babes and nursing infants
You have ordained strength,
Because of Your enemies,
That You may silence the enemy and the avenger.
When I consider Your heavens,
the work of Your fingers,
The moon and the stars, which You have ordained,
What is man that You are mindful of him,
And the son of man that You visit him?
For You have made him a little lower than the angels,
And You have crowned him with glory and honor.
You have made him to have dominion over the works of Your hands;
You have put all things under his feet,
All sheep and oxen—Even the beasts of the field,
The birds of the air, And the fish of the sea That pass through the paths of the seas.
O LORD, our Lord, How excellent is Your name in all the earth!
Psalms 8:1-9 NKJV
Think It Through
This morning I was frustrated, and I will probably be again before the day is done. Why? That’s Life. I’ve made some bad decisions based on frustrated thinking. Yep. You got it. That’s Life. Life is not always perfect. Else, we live in a fairy tale land, and what I see in the news, experience around me, and deal with is as close as the ground under my feet tells me of harsh realities. Nothing looks like pixie dust and gold doubloons at the end of every rainbow. Life gives. Takes away. It comes up roses. Looks like hard work.
I’m taking it one day at a time. I’m not ready to throw in the towel, sling my hands up in the air, and turn to a different path. All I need are for my batteries to be recharged. It t’ain’t happening anytime soon unless I take control and make it happen.
That’s my Micro, and Macro Treasure found on a Saturday Morning.