Crazy Beautiful

It was crazy beautiful.  There I was with my leaf-blower in hand trying to blow the leaves out of the yard and over the bank only to have a stiff breeze pick them up and blow them back.  I was in a mini-cyclone of swirling bright red and yellow maple leaves.  Someone might ask why was I so lacking in I.Q. to be trying to blow them away.  Could I not wait until the day was calm?  I am tempted to respond like a small child with “cause.”  But this time I had a reason.  It was beautiful.  I was lavished with color.  Sometimes we do things just because it’s delicious.  My eyes were feasting.  My mind was semi-drunk with hues.
 
Being human is so wonderful.  We are capable of euphoric moments of sheer delight; standing during Handel’s Messiah, drowning in the lushishness of Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings, tearing when a baby cries his first sound, gasping when seeing my bride coming down the aisle on her father’s arm, marveling at a field of California poppies or standing in St. Peter’s Cathedral surrounded by the works of Michelangelo and hearing the haunting chants of monks echoing across the stone floors and against the stone columns. 
 
It is a taste of so much more to come. “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love.”  I Corinthians 2:9.   We will go from wonder to wonder and we will wonder how can something be so beautifully wordless.  The challenge will be to stay clear headed and not become inebriated with magnificence beyond all imagination.