Morning Musings

I really enjoy my morning run/walks that I take every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. It's my exercise for the week, but also my meditation time - at least one of them. It has been alittle difficult getting used to the heavy morning traffic on Shackleford Road as everyone is rushing off to work at that time of the morning. It can't be good to breathe in all those exhaust fumes as I run down the sidewalk, but such is modern life - right? To be honest, the human exhaust is worse than the engine exhaust. I'm talking about the cigarette smoke that blows from the windows of passing addicts. I've never been much of a "smoker basher," like a lot of preachers tend to be, because people have just as much right to kill themselves with tobacco as the rest of us do with overeatting! But at least overeatters don't stink up the air around them for thirty yards in all directions. It's amazing to me that so many have decided that cigarettte stink is socially acceptable. Personally, I think my Skunk Cover Scent that I've used while hunting smells better - especially in a restaurant while trying to eat - but I digress - there's just something about the spoiling of the fresh morning air that makes me sad. And, if I hadn't come away from so much of it in my past it might not be such a noticable and noxious smell. It really is such a small distraction, just hard to ignore. I see God's creation in such a special way early in the morning. The freshly cut corn fields look like His two-day-old beard. The golden bean fields remind me of a new 1965 shag carpet (remember Harvest Gold?), and the flocks of geese flighing overhead look like God's arrowhead zooming to a new azure target. I pass four church buildings and wonder if each is a family of God who are joyful, Spirit filled, and seeking a deeper relationship with Him. I ask myself, "Is my error better than theirs?" Will we meet at the heavenly chorus rehearsal and say, "How did we live so close to one another and yet never praise God together?" I'm glad God is bigger than my prejudices and traditions. I'm excited to know that His grace is surely much more inclusive than my conclusions. It's not just the sidewalk I'm walking on, I'm walking in the light of His love and being cleansed by blood that is greater than all my doubts and weaknesses. Now if I could just learn how to use the spell check......