The Second Gaze - Looking Down

I feel a bit like I am in a grey and white mode lately.  Looking back at the last few weeks, there’s only a few pictures that aren’t some degree of grey, white, and a little bit of brown.  And today is no different.  Yesterday morning, my morning walk was rather treacherous.  Scout and I did a 4.5 mile hike and I would guess that at least half of it looked like this picture - a solid sheet of ice.  Scout and I spent a lot of time walking just off the side on the path on the frozen-over leaves rather than skating on the ice.  And even with that, there were at least three near falls.  Suffice to say, I spent a lot of time looking down to be sure that my footing was solid rather than looking up and around like I normally do.  

There’s a balance to be struck in the spiritual life of looking up and looking down.  A lot of the looking down feels like those parts of life where we are “watching our steps” and being attentive to our personal selves, being sure that we are walking the right path, not tripping over things, and overall being more self-focused.  And there are seasons of life (just like days walking around an icy path) that we need to be looking down far more and up and out.  But we can’t live our lives only in that way.  We have to have our eyes up and looking out and around to be attentive to the people, the world, and circumstances.  Here are those places where we see not only the beauty of the world around us but also open us up to how we can help with the needs of others.