31 Days In Which I am Saved by Beauty – Day 2

The blessing of Moses over the land of Joseph:
“Blessed by GOD be his land:
The best fresh dew from high heaven,
and fountains springing from the depths;
The best radiance streaming from the sun
and the best the moon has to offer;
Beauty pouring off the tops of the mountains
and the best from the everlasting hills;
The best of Earth’s exuberant gifts,
the smile of the Burning-Bush Dweller.”
Deuteronomy 33:13-15 – The Message

Ah, this is a land blessed by God. The canyon edge 
does not a mountain make. Still, it pours beauty.
Fountains spring up from the depths and a river is born.
From far below the ground, tumbling from a secret place,
a hidden lake makes the Frio flow. 
Together, canyon and river, they wander these hills,
carving layers of pink and golden beige, 
encouraging cactus, wildflower, scrub brush. 

Standing on the edge, the sun sets behind you, 
and history shines up, right into your lens.
You remember that eons flowed, suns rose and set, 
the earth turned millions of times before you ever looked 
through that viewfinder.

Strange comfort, this feeling. Maybe the beauty, 
this shimmering, reflected glory, 
speaks to the grandness of God,
the faithfulness of stone, the stability of water. 
Maybe the whole idea of age is ludicrous 
in such a setting.  Three score and seven is a blink,
a sigh, a shift in the sandy soil at the bottom of
all 
that 
water. 








Get a personal letter from Diana twice a month

Sign up for *More Wondering. . . * a monthly personal letter from Diana to you, available only to email subscribers. As thanks, receive a copy of Diana's new ebook,30 Ways of Aging Gracefully.

powered by TinyLetter

To receive blog posts in your inbox, sign up below.


Comments

  1. Love that last line…especially those last few words, for God is immense and timeless and found in the beauty of the sands shifting at the bottom of all that Living water. Amen!

  2. Modern Country Style says

    what a lovely, lovely post. I feel thoroughly uplifted and am smiling now. It’s so good to be reminded of what’s essential in this life…thank you!

    Sarahx

  3. Diana, that was just beautiful. The beauty that surrounds us every day – the sun rising, the sun setting, the flowers blooming, springs rising – that God spun into motion every day for thousands of years that we often failed to take time to notice. Thank you for sharing the beauty of the Rio here.

  4. Holly Covington says

    So lovely. The photo is perfect, and you capture Immensity and Timelessness so very well. Thanks for sharing the beauty with us for these 31 days!

  5. Thank you, Patricia. These words are high praise coming from you, the beauty-seeker extraordinaire. (And it’s the FRIO, not quite so grand as the Rio – but lovely, lovely, lovely.)

  6. Thanks so much, Sarah – glad you found it hopeful. And it is times like this that are indeed essential – and somehow so rare. Need to be intentional about make them less rare, I think.

  7. So lovely. The photo is perfect, and you capture Immensity and Timelessness so very well. Thanks for sharing the beauty with us for these 31 days!

  8. Thanks so much, Sarah – glad you found it hopeful. And it is times like this that are indeed essential – and somehow so rare. Need to be intentional about make them less rare, I think.

  9. I am including a reply to Cindee Snider Re in your box, Patricia, as somehow Disqus is fouling up her comments. I got it through blogger, but it’s not showing up on the blog. So this is for her:

    Praying for you these days – and all these days lately. I think maybe you were up all night to have left this at 4:00 in the morning! Tony sent us a message that the surgery went well. NOW. LET OTHERS TAKE CARE OF YOU. And yes, God is immense and timeless and you are safe in God’s care.

  10. Well…things got confused this morning when I tried to reply to comments. Here is MY reply rather than a copy of your own!
    Thanks for stopping by, dear Holly. I loved the reflections in this shot – it was one of my favorite things about the Frio river last year. And this year? We only got this one glimpse of it, the night we arrived. Because – it started to rain and remained cloudy the rest of the weekend. That had its own kind of beauty – but not this kind. So I wanted to remember that somehow. Glad you enjoyed it.

  11. Thank you for this, Diana. I was having the same problems until I realized I needed to turn off comments on my blogger settings. You might need to do the same. It forces everyone to use Disqus, which can sometimes be slow to load. Would you mind sending me a PM about Cindee’s surgery? Not being able to be in Tx with y’all, I’m out of the loop on that one.

  12. It is only very occasionally and only a few specific people – and they have problems elsewhere, too. Sandy King had a horrible time for a while there. I resist turning off blogger because I like to know who comments – and disqus misses a few here and there.

  13. Awwww….you are much too kind, Diana. I KNEW it was the Frio, but I’m old and my fingers don’t often do what my brain tells it to do and vice-versa! xox

  14. What a great series you are sharing with us.

  15. Thank you, Susan. And thanks for coming by…

  16. lindalouise says

    Beautiful thoughts and a remarkably beautiful picture dear Diana.

  17. I know of this timelessness, this beauty, this shimmering of which you speak. All this beauty POURING off the mountaintops…it’s almost too much. It’s as if, in these moments of reflection and awe, we get a glimpse of God’s face. Beautiful.

  18. Thanks, Linda – always happy to see you here. (or anywhere)

  19. Exactly. See – you should be writing these posts!

  20. Oh no, my friend. YOUR voice is what I want to hear.

  21. You are kind, Holly. Thank you.

  22. Carol J. Garvin says

    Excellent post, Diana! Your thought that “maybe the whole idea of age is ludicrous” touches on the comparison of eternity versus human frailty. Despite our concerns over ecology and the environment’s decline, I suspect this world will outlast my generation and several more. My body and its imperfections are only a minute part in God’s creation. The seemingly timeless cycle of seasons nurtures my hope that each season of my life has purpose and its own kind of beauty, so fretting about becoming any age (my mother’s dread was 50, my son’s was 20) wastes the provision of now.

  23. Thank you, Carol. And you grasped my meaning exactly. We worry so much about age – and all of our ages, even the most elderly among us, are mere seconds against the screen of creation. So I say relax and enjoy each different stage as much as you can – doesn’t mean we have to love everything about each stage, just that we celebrate the gifts that are indeed there.