Late last summer, my husband and I took a walk at one of our favorite spots — Coal Oil Point, on the campus of UCSB way out in Goleta. Actually that neighboring town is only about a ten mile drive from our home, but I may have adopted the attitude of so many Santa Barbara folk, an attitude that I detested when I first moved here. There is this pervasive air of complaint about getting in the car and going anywhere other than here. Somehow, driving to Goleta is like heading out to the boonies! You know, I lived in the San Gabriel Valley for almost thirty years and thought nothing of driving ten miles or more to visit a favorite store or restaurant. But here? Somehow, the distances are more bothersome. I’m workin’ on that one!

This spot is high on the bluffs, with gravel pathways for foot traffic and bicycles, pathways that lead to an isolated surfing beach with a stunning view. I’ve used pictures from this place before. In fact, they were the primary illustrations for the first e-book I published called, “Living the Questions.” That small book grew out of a blog series I did several years ago and used a surfing analogy to get us into the topic.

But this particular shot was taken from a different location than most of my previous ones. In fact, I had to look at it for a while in order to correctly identify where it was taken. Almost all of the beaches that I photograph are distinct and I can tell immediately which one I’m looking at. But this picture showed me a little bit different slice of the beauty out there at Coal Oil Point.

We can become so accustomed to the usual, to the expected. Changing the parameters of that viewfinder can reveal all kinds of thing, don’t you think? Where are you focussed right now? Is there something in  your field of vision that is consuming you these days? Do you need to switch it up for a few minutes, turn that focus slightly to the left or right and look at things with a fresh eye?

This whole idea of changing perspective, angle, viewfinder seems to be a recurring theme in this series. Maybe it’s really, really important.

There is one word that jumps out at me from this lovely quotation, the longest one I found on those four stone obelisks at the Mater Dolorosa Retreat Center when I stayed there in September. Can you guess which word it is?

Lively, that’s the one. I’m a big believer in meditation and imaginative reading of scripture truth. And I believe that the practice/exercise described here is one worth doing, on a regular basis. And the central question to be asked during this practice? Oh, yes! This is the center of it all, isn’t it? “For whom are you suffering, my Jesus?”

For me? For us?

Yes, yes, and yes. 

Clearly, the entire quotation speaks to my heart, on multiple levels. But it is that small adverb which has truly captured me. “LIVELY.”

Is my faith lively? Is my love? That is exactly the right word. One I want to remember, to cling to, to ask for grace to live out. I desire a faith and a love that is lively. Full of LIFE — interesting, not stodgy; crackling, not dreary; curious, not stagnant; honest, not dissembling; open, not closed; lively.

What do you think?

Even in the midst of drought, things grow. Our trip back home, heading south, was much more scenic! The details were sharp, as though someone had turned the focus lens on the camera and we could see everything shimmer. Family farms, industrial farms, small towns, groves of trees, rolling hills with shadows and pockets — all of it standing at attention for us to enjoy. 

What a difference a day makes.

If you don’t like what you see around you, wait a while. Breathe. Look closer in when the distant view is bleary. See if you can smell anything pleasant, or touch something soft, or eat something delicious. 

There is beauty to be found. Are we looking? Really looking?

Tell me what you saw today — or smelled/tasted/touched?

The second stop on our Poetry Walk (noted first on this day) was this fascinating plant. Our silent leader this round was a young woman, a college student who is a current member of Dr. Willis’s senior Honor’s Class. Each of our four stops took place in a very small space, maybe 30 feet from beginning to end. There is something to see with each step we take, you know, even if our world is small and circumscribed.

This sage-colored, pointy-leafed plant is a succulent of some kind, maybe a member of the aloe family? It’s color is muted, like most succulents, and the play of light and dark across its surface brought these words:

sunshine and shade
    play peek-a-boo
with your prickly arms,
each one shorter
   than the one before,
all ridged by
      thorns,
saying,
      stay away!
please don’t find me

Sometimes I have prickly arms, too. Do you? There are seasons when I don’t particularly want others around me too much. This doesn’t happen often, but when it does, I try to pay attention. I ask myself why I’m choosing isolation, trying to suss out where there is fear or anger inside. Those are two emotions that can rule us too often; sometimes we need to look at them, to let them breathe and dissipate. Then those thorns can rest, retract, retreat.

Wow — this paying attention business can get right up IN my business, it seems!

We are exceptionally D R Y here in California. At this end of a five year drought, one of the worst on record, everything looks and feels like tinder. Our drive north last month, usually one of the most beautiful stretches of road in the world, was marked by exceptionally hazy weather, making visibility difficult. The thick air was the result of wind-driven smoke from the wildfires about 30 miles to the west of us, over on Highway 1. For most of the way north, we could barely see the lovely, low foothills to our east.

And then we came around a bend and found this loveliness. Yes, that ripe golden color is evidence of the dryness I’m talking about. Yes, I hope and pray it will green up this winter and spring. BUT. Right here, right now, it made me catch my breath. I am sure that row of very green oak trees helped that gasp along, but the hills and the roadside alone — seen without the dreary filter of smoke and haze — were beauty enough.

Cleaning up our filters is a big part of paying attention, isn’t it? Releasing negative thoughts, buried anger, fatigue — all of the very human stuff that sometimes gets in the way of our really seeing things clearly. 

“Lift the smoke, Lord — the stubborn embers of my frustration, judgment, fear and grief. Help me to see the beauty right in front of me, right now, right here.”