Ruminations and Ramifications

The goodness of God

I was killing some time on a knitting magazine website. Looking at a few odds and ends to knit "one day". Reading an article or two. I found one about a lady who took a trip to Turkey by herself (I can relate) to just knit and enjoy being shuttled around to the various tourist stops. One photo showed her sitting on a bench facing a beautiful mountain with almost ice-blue (not even azure) water in front of it. And it came back to me.

You know, God didn't have to make the views from our perspective pretty. He could have made the views from above - only- beautiful, and He STILL would be glorified through that, because He does not need US to appreciate something in order for it to be qualified as beautiful.

But God still made the view from our perspective, perched atop two legs, approximately six feet from the ground, He made that beautiful. What care and goodness does that show? What love? To give such good things to those who do not care to know Him. To those born in opposition to Him. To those who continue to indulge the flesh, despite their knowledge and power to do otherwise.

I remember looking at a photo of the Rocky Mountains thinking "God, do You see this? Can you see this? Do you see it this way every day?" He could have made the earth level, all vegetation extending no more than 6 inches above the ground, and while that itself has beauty, there is still something beautiful in the vistas and views created by height, depth, and distance relative to the observer.

God could have made the world enjoyable ONLY from a viewpoint above the earth looking down. But He didn't.

I remember thinking in college that Landscape Architects had it all wrong. They created these beautiful and intricate patterns on the ground appreciated only from the plan-reader's perspective. Curving walks and circles and trees planted in a row. But they just didn't look all that interesting from the ground. The best landscapes on the ground look absolutely convoluted from overhead. But they still took their T-squares and drafting triangles and made shapes and curves until it looked like some kind of modern art painting of grass, shrubs, trees and concrete. But once installed, unless you jump in a plane, you have no idea what the architect was thinking when it was designed.

I remember shooting in Downtown Dallas a LOT when I first got my camera gear. I walked past and through Pegasus Plaza many times. But one evening I was in my friend's 14th floor loft in a building across the street from the Plaza, and happened to look down. It all came together. It wasn't a mishmash of concrete and water. There was a definite design to it that could ONLY be appreciated from above, one that looked BETTER from above. (Granted, probably the reason it was done so, being something to look at from the window of a skyscraper.)

How good of God to give us the beautiful views from the ground, from our perspective.

posted by Marcian @ 11:34 AM