I spent the day with my son yesterday, wrapping up our time over a fine dinner near a park along the south bank of the Spokane River in downtown Spokane. This morning I woke up around 6, pulled on a pair of khakis, a wine-colored long-sleeve Eddie Bauer T, wrapped a scarf around my neck and slipped quietly out of the hotel to come here to read for a bit. I avoided the hotel restaurant so I could get out and experience Brandon’s college town a little bit. The breeze blowing the colorful autumn leaves across the sidewalks and streets of the city this morning is quite cool, but more bracing than unwelcome. It was a short walk to the café but I took a little detour that sent me down a walkway along the river where I lingered awhile to take it all in. Fall is definitely in the air.
Yesterday Brandon walked me around the campus to show me where he spends most of his time; where his classes are, where he grabs coffee, where he works out. I had forgotten what a beautiful campus it is. As we drove down the tree-lined street toward the center of the campus a group of girls walking alongside the road waved and called out an enthusiastic greeting. I’m pretty sure they were waving at him, not me. Now a senior, he knows a lot of the students and faculty. This is his world. He’s done well putting together a life here. It is a blessing to be the father of such a fine young man.
When I travel I often bring a book along for the flight. I had picked up a book yesterday that has been getting a lot of publicity. The God Delusion. It was written by the influential scientist, Richard Dawkins. He draws on evolution to attempt to disprove the concept of intelligent design and promote atheism. His prose is full of scorn for people of faith. He says it is the scientist in him that makes him hostile to Christianity. I heard Dawkins interviewed the other day. He said he can’t prove absolutely there is no God, but in his mind, he just can’t imagine it. A lifetime of research has left him believing that a God that could create such an astoundingly beautiful, infinite universe would have to be extremely complex, raising questions over how the creator himself came into existence. How could such a God exist? How would such an entity communicate?
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Taking in the grassy, forested expanse of the campus yesterday, I found myself again seeing art in the everyday. (Ever see the Banana Republic ad campaign “Find the Art in the Everyday?” Great campaign. Great suggestion.)
On the campus there was this tree, brilliant in its autumn colors, standing in the midst of a forest of evergreens, dropping its leaves. The leaves were falling steadily without pause onto the green lawn. It was like snowfall. At the rate they were falling I could not imagine the tree would make it to day’s end with a single leaf left on a branch. But they just kept falling, raining down, raining down, raining down.
This morning as I walked the sun crested the horizon and the river surface caught the rays as they spread across the scene. The moving water played with the color of the sunrise, carrying it down into an area of rapids where it disappeared into silver as it spilled over and around some boulders. I watched the display, thinking that every moment, every hour, every day, every year, year after year after year, the river is new, ever changing.
The office building where my friend Rick the Scribe does his work is just off a parking lot situated at the base of the foothills of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado. He was telling me that usually when he arrives, loaded up with his briefcase and a crate he carries back and forth from his home office, he trudges across the parking lot with his eyes fixed on the pavement, consumed with the task list in his head. But sometimes, every once in awhile, he hears a voice telling him to stop. Stop. Slow down a sec. Turn around and look toward the west at those mountains rising up toward the heavens. Would you just look at that? Is that spectacular or what?
Look for the art in the everyday. Yes. And more than that, look for the artist.
(To email Brad click on his picture above right and click Email)
