Tonight I look a walk along the lake. I was in serious need of some stress relief, so I threw on my walking shoes, clipped on my CD player, grabbed the pooch and took off. Mark was kind enough to take charge of the home front, so I walked as far, fast, and furiously as my forty-something legs would carry me.
I pounded the path to the beat of the music, worked my way over and over my Rosary beads, conversed here and there with the Blessed Mother, felt the cool late summer breeze against my face, and let the chaos in my mind wind and weave in whatever direction it wanted to go.
I walked until sunset...past sunset...to dusk...after dark...and kept right on walking. It felt so great to have this mental space that I didn't want it to end. The harder I pushed my body, the harder my mind worked.
As I was stomping and tromping away, I noticed something weird out of the corner of my eye. I stopped. A fiery orange globe was resting on the horizon of the water. What in the...Oh, my goodness. It was the moon! I'd never, ever seen the moon so brilliant and so deeply orange - so deeply orange that it was a rich, vivacious rust color.
It was so magnificent that I just had to sit down and take in its beauty. I watched as it slowly made its way up, illuminating the sky and casting an awesome ray of orange-red light across the water.
I kept thinking, "Wow. God put this gorgeous moon here just for me. I was so busy walking and thinking that I nearly missed it. And he drew my attention toward it."
It made me think about the Psalm: “When I behold your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you set in place – What is man that you should be mindful of him, or the son of man that you should care for him?” (Ps 8:4-5)
It’s amazing to me that God is so powerful and mighty that he could literally set the moon and stars in their places. He causes the waves to roar and slap relentlessly against the rocks by the shore. He makes the sun burn with such intense energy that is can scorch the earth and generates the life that grows from deep within its soil. He brings the loveliest blossoms to bloom and sets the winds into motion. Yet he needs none of this for himself.
Then it hit me: I'd almost missed the moon entirely. I'd been walking along a section of path that was wide open to the lake's horizon and I'd barely paid attention. I turned around and looked behind me. I'd covered a long portion of that section and was nearly two-thirds of the way through it before I noticed the moon. I was so into myself, my stress, my needs, my passion, irks, and fears, that I nearly missed the beautiful gift God had planned for me.
This column appeared in the July 24, 2008 issue of the Milwaukee Catholic Herald.