Tip of My Iceberg

My family finds it quite humorous that I’m a morning person. The only true morning glory in the bunch. Everyone else is a night owl.

They find daylight perkiness annoying. But it gets me going.

By noon, I’m on that downward slippery slope to mental fog.

So I enjoy walking in the morning. Thinking deep thoughts.

That’s where I need to be careful. If those thoughts get too deep, I’m not paying attention to where I’m going.

Never a good thing in the dark.

Early this morning I was hoofing it and thinking about the  moon. (There’s deep for you.)

It was full–my favorite phase. It looked like a giant happy face and gave off a brilliance that lightened everything.

If I’d been watching where I was going. Which I wasn’t.

I walked into a deep puddle of water. But rather than jumping clear of it, I stood there longer than a thinking person would have.

(I may be an early riser. My brain, however, is not. Perky doesn’t require thought.)

As my socks began to get damp through my shoes, my slowness of mind got me a face full of sprinkler water.

A little wet in Florida is often welcomed when you’re sweaty from exercise. The heat and humidity, even early in the morning, can be draining. There was, however, no refreshment in this.

It was reclaimed water. Not fully purified. Stinky. A stink that sticks with you for awhile.

My semi-thoughtful response was to hurry ahead. Into more sprinklers. Reclaimed water dripped from my hat. Into my mouth. I was fairly soaked with stink.

There went the perky.

It wasn’t what I expected. It certainly wasn’t what I wanted. The stinky water could make the grass green and the flowers grow. But it did nothing for me.

Did I mention that it made me smell funny?

Enough with the water. There are many things in life that aren’t really what they appear to be. What I want them to be.

When I buy a box of beautiful strawberries, I want them to taste like strawberries. Not like damp cardboard. When someone responds with answers I’m seeking, I want them to be honest. Not say what they think I want to hear.

Blurry vision. I don’t–can’t–see things clearly.

I look at life with faulty perception much of the time. Not intentionally. Just really wanting things–and people–to be how they are represented.

Do I do that?

Clarity of sight isn’t what we get in a world full of hurt and darkness. The apostle Paul talked about how our seeing is fuzzy.

“Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.”                              1 Corinthians 13:12

I know I’m not a clear picture to others. If I can manage my image and people don’t know the real me, the me I want to hide, I’ll choose to live with that. Too often what people perceive of me is incomplete. Which keeps me from being known.

Reclaimed human. Not fully purified. Rather stinky.

But I am known by God. Fully. Clearly.

He embraces the whole me. Stinky and all.

First photo courtesy of socialinnovation.com.

Second photo courtesy of climatetechwiki.org.