Blog Header - June 14, 2009

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any years ago I watched the movie “The Color Purple.” I remember it as a good movie with a good message. But the most vivid memory I have from that movie is the line that gave the movie its title. Two young ladies were walking through an open grassy field. As they approached a small patch of wildflowers growing in the field, one of the girls stopped to look at the flowers. She said, “I think that God gets really pissed off when we don’t notice the color purple.”

That quote is stated a bit more crudely than I would prefer when talking about God, but I believe the sentiment it expresses is a very good one. God has created amazing beauty all around us and we need to appreciate it.

God created a world of amazing beauty and then placed Adam and Eve in the Garden where they were to enjoy this intense beauty while having a perfect relationship with God, whose beauty far exceeds that of the natural world.

When sin entered the world through Adam and Eve, the relationship with God was severed. But also the natural world began to feel the effects of sin. Just as we humans are not perfect as we were created to be, the natural world is not perfect as it was created to be. And yet there is incredible beauty all around us, as long as we take the time to notice. And noticing the world’s beauty should prompt us to praise the Creator, just as the young lady did in The Color Purple.

This past week has been a very full and busy week. We had planned on doing a lot of packing for our upcoming move—and those plans were fulfilled. But many other things came up as the week progressed and we had difficulty getting everything done. So yesterday was a day that we were able to slow down a little bit, wrap up a few loose ends and, at the end of the day, simply sit back and relax.

I had mowed the lawn and the lawn furniture looked particularly inviting. I had also stopped on my way home from DC this past Thursday at Pearmund Cellars Vineyard and Winery to pick up a few bottles of their outstanding wines. So I pulled a bottle of Pearmund Riesling out of the wine refrigerator, grabbed a book, and headed out to sit in the yard. But I never got to read the book.

I had been outside for no more than a few minutes (and read less than a page of my book) when a young deer bounded into the yard. I watched as he frolicked in the yard and looked for food around the apple trees. When he ran off behind our house a few minutes later I continued to look at the trees, the mountains, and the sky. And I had a Color Purple moment.

I went into the house, grabbed my camera, and returned to the yard. By the way, although I love to play around in Photoshop, none of these photos have been altered except for the header photo. The name of my blog was not actually floating there in front of the trees—I had to add it.

The sky was a beautiful deepening blue as the sun began to set. Different types of clouds—some bright, fluffy and white and others dark and whispy—floated across the sky in an ever-changing panoply of beauty. I noticed the wonderful gradations of green in the leaves on the trees, the myriad shades of blue in the distant mountains, and the vivid pink and yellow rims of the clouds as the sun fell further and further from its zenith. It was gorgeous.

And God orchestrated the entire thing—even the all-natural fermentation of the Riesling grapes as they became the outstanding wine I was enjoying—just as he does every single day. His artistry is intense and amazing. What a wonder our God is!