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One night, I stepped outside into my yard and looked up.  My breath caught.  Above me, the light of the full moon shone brightly behind big, cottony clouds, giving them a beautiful silver lining.  In between the clouds, in the dark blue pitch of space, a smattering of stars splashed, playfully winking.  I couldn't move, couldn't take my eyes away.  Everything in me desired to stay in that moment forever.  I knew if I moved, looked away, the moment would be gone.  

My soul sang with the glory of the art displayed before me.  I felt my being yearn to become one with it.  I wanted to disappear, and be a part of the exquisitely beautiful creation above me.  I wept within the embrace of Wonder...and with the knowledge that it wouldn't last, much to my dismay, I searched for a way, and then found myself praying.

I whispered...

"Let me take it with me.  Let me take it with me when I leave this life, and this Earth.  Let me take this moment, this vision made by Your hand, with me.  Let me be the eternal witness of Your glory expressed on this Earth." 

Then I felt silly.  I felt audacious for even having asked that of Him.  I felt childlike, viewing myself sitting on the lap of my Father, showing Him my little collection of moments in a scrapbook, turning the pages for Him, saying..."Oh, an' 'member this?!"  With Him saying, "Yes, yes, dear."  Patting me on my little spirit head. 

(That was when I still viewed being a "grown up" meant...what?  Something more serious, I guess, austere, and more controlled and less fanciful.)

Yet, my heart was filled with such gratitude for even having the ability to see such beauty.  I felt stricken with Awe.  I don't know how long I stood there, transfixed, but when I eventually, reluctantly, did step away, that sense of awe never left me.  I found myself actively seeking more of those moments.  I felt my soul hungering and thirsting for another taste.  It was a high unmatched by any drug, drink, or substance on this earth.  Just one more...

What I didn't know then, was in the act of seeking for those exquisite moments of wonder, to experience it one more time, I was slowly being transformed from the inside out.  "Seek and ye shall find."  My view of everything having to do with this life began to change.  Ever so slowly, my senses became attuned to the slightest touch of Wonder.  I saw it there...just around the outer edges, heard the whisper of a song, "Look..."  Even my view of fellow humans, and my relationships with them, which was in sore need of being healed, began to be filtered through the lens of Wonder.  My collection, to fill my scrapbook, grew.

Since then, I have walked through some dark times, and honestly, if not for this habit of mine, I'm not sure I would be doing as well as I am.  Right now, I walk through poverty...but I don't feel poor.  I recently told a friend, "I don't find the wonders of God and Earth go away just because I have no money."  I feel rich with them.  It is impossible to fret, or to stay in anguish, when our eyes are on the glory of creation.  When we hear the Song of it on the wind. 

There is nothing within us that can withstand it, once our eyes open to the Sun. I stand before it wonder struck.  No words, no paint, no pencil, no camera, no song does it justice.  We can't capture it.  We can only witness the glory of it.  I marvel at the perfection, that not one of us can even come close to matching!  I think that's what is meant by "without merit by His Grace."  We can only stand or dance in it, our arms raised in praise, and then try to give it back, through our art, in our little scrapbooks, knowing we can never capture the sheer mastery of the Greatest of All Artists.  But it's the reaching for it, the practice of it, the doing of art, that heals us.  For we find...that's why we were made.  To reach for Creation, and to join our unique voices to the Symphony.

So here, I humbly attempt to share with you, through writing, poetry, and drawings, my little scrapbook of wonders.  Well aware that my childlike drawings, and words in writing, can never do those wonders justice...I don't think God cares.  I think...He's delighted that His Gifts of Wonder are received.  I know I am more than grateful.  I feel blessed with them.

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