What are the things we can suddenly notice in routines that are so familiar? We walk along the path in a hot winter’s day when the sun is removing our hats and our mittens. Over the din of the traffic, and the barking excitement of the scurrying dogs we pause at the sound of dripping water. A dozen miniature waterfalls have sprung themselves from the clay bank that rises to our right. Gurgling and bubbling they send out their trickles while we wonder how we can be hearing this sound for the first time on a path we follow every day.
Next morning I sit listening absent-mindedly to the story of the loaves and fishes. Five barley loaves and two fishes are produced and offered up as lunch to a crowd of five thousand. And there are the old familiar questions. How did the food stretch to feed so many? Did people in the crowd get out their lunches and add their contents to the picnic? Did Jesus do some sort of expanding miracle on the food? Suddenly there is a detail I have always known, but now notice for the first time. The crowd numbers five thousand. Jesus addressed this crowd. Does anyone ever pause while contemplating the food to wonder how, without a modern public address system, he made himself heard in an outdoor venue?
Here we see two consecutive examples of the force that surely propels the efforts of detectives and treasure hunters. How can we fail to have hope when, in observing something we have observed hundreds, maybe thousands of times, we notice a detail that previously escaped our attention? In the daily grind of the familiar, possible discoveries abound.
No comments:
Post a Comment