The Filter

The glow in the eastern sky illuminated the trees and the pond in the distance as morning dawned upon the hillside in the Piedmont region of North Carolina. As I gazed upward I could see the still bright quarter moon and a few surrounding stars glistening in the crisp and clear morning. Just a few days ago I witnessed the same phenomenon, but from a different position. We were somewhere in the mid-Atlantic ocean cruising toward Port Everglades fresh from the Straits of Gibraltar. The glow in the eastern sky was bright above the water showing in the horizon and the then remnant of a giant full moon shone brightly above. The warmth of the Atlantic surrounded as we embraced the breeze from the fast moving ship that morning. Today’s embrace was quite a bit colder as the arctic front had recently brought with it a cooler presence that reminds us of nature’s change. Two different views, but the same sun rising and the same moon gazing down remind me that life’s basic and sustaining gifts remain the same, but out perspective on them often changes. Life is a gift that is often viewed through filters of experience that have rendered various degrees of value being assigned to it. The filters are our own; the value we assign; the gift is still the gift. As an unwitting host to this disease called Parkinson’s it is easy to wear the diseased filter that assigns a self-asserted value to this gift called life. I am humbled when reminded that the gift is free and from the One who is both the alpha and omega and that the real joy of the gift is living in gratitude. For by doing so, we are afforded the view that sees the greatest value to be found – LOVE.