Chin Up -8/12

By the time I was at work this morning after my regular 30-minute commute, I was ready to write an entire post about my pet peeves, specifically bad, aggressive drivers. I grumbled getting out of the car and started my walk with my eyes down at the sidewalk. But my gaze was drawn to the sky and I stopped in my tracks.

"Chin up," said the voice in my heart. 

Look what I might have missed if I kept in my own head about how upset I was. There is so much glory and beauty in our surroundings, in the people we encounter. If we let the bad drivers bring us down, and believe me - my day was not done with its share of bad drivers - we'll miss the rays of sun breaking through overhead.

Something So Little

Today I had to make a choice.
I fought a battle.
I'm letting go
of that little voice
who looks in the mirror with me and says,
"How could someone want you?"

A lot of days,
more so than ever before,
it's nowhere to be found.
It sneaks back around, though,
occasionally,
trying to break through my defenses,
preying on old wounds.

I am much more than
how I appear.
And yet, how I appear is also
a part of my "much more" --
and if I let that
little voice
question my much-ness,
my more becomes less.

So I fought to
let go,
because I will not be diminished
by something
so
little.

The Beauty of the Earth

The beauty of the earth lies in its variance - in dappled colors, shifting clouds, ebbing tides.  It is a contradiction of constant change.  There is no better reminder of this than traveling through forests, with sudden sweeping views of coast land.  My father and I paused very briefly in the Humboldt Redwoods State Park today (on our journey back to Seattle) and I found a magnet with an amazing poem to sum up the feelings left in my spirit under the canopies of such ancient creation.  And, most appropriately, it is by Joseph Strauss, one of the designers of the Golden Gate Bridge.

The Redwoods

Joseph B. Strauss

Here, sown by the Creator's hand.

In serried ranks, the Redwoods stand:

No other clime is honored so,

No other lands their glory know.

The greatest of Earth's living forms,

Tall conquerors that laugh at storms;

Their challenge still unanswered rings,

Through fifty centuries of kings.

The nations that with them were young,

Rich empires, with their forts far-flung,

Lie buried now-their splendor gone:

But these proud monarchs still live on.

So shall they live, when ends our days,

When our crude citadels decay;

For brief the years allotted man,

But infinite perennials' span.

This is their temple, vaulted high,

And here, we pause with reverent eye,

With silent tongue and awestruck soul;

For here we sense life's proper goal:

To be like these, straight, true and fine,

to make our world like theirs, a shrine;

Sink down, Oh, traveler, on your knees,

God stands before you in these trees.

Music

Oh to soar on the wings of a tone.
Nothing compares to such freedom of the soul.