Random Thoughts on Grace

 We spent the day Saturday apple picking.  It is fall and the apples are just at the point of perfection.  It is all about timing with apples, so off to Vermont we went. A blue sky day and a full tank of gas, was all that was needed...and the call of the open road.  A Saturday with Sweet and Kayla in the car.  Good music not to mention lunch on the road awaiting.


A reflective thought or two kept rattling around in my brain.  Note to self: almost always the marvelous and the mundane are side by side.  Spectacular mountains with wind, water and sky were all right there. The Adirondacks on one side and the Green Mountains on the other side of the car...the leaves just starting to turn colors.  The miraculous surrounded me and yet at the same time the mundane, the usual, the Thursday morning make it to work was never far away.


A strip mall, or shopping plaza is never far way...with asphalt and guard rails forming the boundaries just in the back ground of this beauty.  If we could pave right up to paradise we would in 21 century America...I think this as I am driving along a beautiful section of Lake Champlain.  There is beach, sky and let's not forget apple trees.  There is such blessing, and such garbage in the mix.

I ran across this quote in some reading I am doing... 


All beauty is gratuitous. So whom can we blame when it seems to be taken away? Grace seems to be at the foundation of everything. 


Rohr, Richard (2011-04-01). Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life (p. 78). Jossey-Bass. Kindle Edition.

Maybe that is it in a nutshell. Why question the beauty...or even when it seems to be getting eaten up by subdivisions and sprawl, asphalt and guardrails?   In other words...beauty is a bonus enjoy it, thank God for it... recognize that grace is at the root of it.  


Water, sky and a boat, so beautiful...and grace is what supports it...and somehow it reminds me of Jesus.  There is  God right in the middle of an apple-picking, ferry-riding, family  fun day.

So Lord, what was that camel we passed trying to say to me?  "Hey, Silly Man don't miss the grace along the way...it is what we are all here to experience?" 


Grace is the foundation of everything...absolutely!