Perception May NOT Be Reality!
If we can simply focus differently, the sublime, the magical,
and the miraculous become our reward.
-The Miracle Collectors
Fall is officially upon us. We need to look no further than the changing trees and the cooler evenings as daylight slowly ebbs. That which we saw and thought we knew all summer, transforms from green to gold and morphs into nature's next iteration. This month, Joan challenges us to consider changing our own perspective. What beauty might we find lurking beneath something we thought we knew or assumed at first pass? With luck and attention we may be blessed with the gift of understanding someone or something more clearly.
Collecting Miracle Moments One Story at a Time.
Joan and Katie
I returned to California from my two-month sojourn on the East Coast 10 days ago with stacks of mail, unpacking, and re-entry on my mind. Unfortunately, my daughter-in-law had an unexpected and prolonged stay in the hospital. (Thankfully, she is good now.) The good news is we got to have our grandchildren quite a bit, which is wonderful fun but not conducive to getting a lot done. Not to mention the grape harvest at our family winery is in full swing and life went from 0 to 60 pretty quickly. So the last thing I needed was a flat tire to slow me down. No big deal, just definitely an inconvenience. I did what anyone would do and brought the tire back to the place I had bought it a few hundred miles earlier. Unfortunately, they don't repair tires, they only replace them - who even knew that was a thing! They did tell me I could get a partial credit on my nearly brand new tire. To me, replacement seemed far too wasteful for a simple nail stuck in the tread. So after filling up the tire with a borrowed portable air compressor, I went and waited at the local tire store where they do indeed plug tires. An hour into my wait, the technician came out and told me it would be no problem to remove the nail and plug the hole, but that was not what I needed. It turns out that there was a large bubble caused by a faulty steel belt on the inside of the tire. A blowout on the highway he said was inevitable. Whoa! As someone who likes to drive fast, a blowout on the highway is not something I need. The whole experience was a poignant reminder of how perception - what turned out to be a massive inconvenience of having a flat tire was not necessarily reality. The bigger picture, that which I could not see, was in fact the reality - and having the flat may have saved my life.
We talk a lot about changing perceptions when we think about miracles and looking at things differently. Sometimes it is as simple as seeing what we expect to see and never looking beyond; other times it is making judgments about what we see on the surface without going deeper. As I write this blog we're coming up to 9/25, which in many states will be celebrated as Dolly Parton Day. It is a lovely way to honor a woman who was a miracle for so many through her reading programs and her many kindnesses. While we came to love Dolly over the years, we can easily imagine that at first when many looked at her over-the-top exterior, they didn't see a powerhouse. My guess is they undersold her. They had a hard time taking her seriously with her larger-than-life persona, instead of taking the time to look further, and deeper, to appreciate the remarkable heart and soul that fortunately we came to know.
We often use the example of the two straight lines depicted below that look to be different lengths but are actually the same to illustrate that things are not always what they seem. Recognizing that our eyes can be deceived, we need a way to change our paradigm of perception to one that allows us to see things in a new light with appreciation and with wonder. To do this, I try to remember the words we wrote in The Miracle Collectors about perception. "When we acknowledge that there can be more than meets the eye, we open ourselves up to a whole new world." Perhaps that is the challenge for all of us this Fall to look for, and to find, this whole new world. (Joan)
Miracle Moment Challenge: Hidden Pictures
Think about someone or something you encounter every day but take for granted.
Find something new or different you had not noticed before.