It has been months since my last post in what is supposed to be a collection of daily thoughts. Amazing how the days pass by so swiftly that just as you are forgetting what the sunrise looks like, you are already witnessing a glorious sunset.
I now sit 10 floors above the busy Alabang-Zapote Road – from my window I see the Makati-Mandaluyong-Ortigas-Quezon City skylines outlined by distant yet all too familiar buildings, many of which I can identify by their silhouettes.
Every morning, I arrive to an empty office, and the distant view makes me appreciate the vastness of God’s creations. From my vantage point, I see large patches of green silently and peacefully wrestling with the all-too-familiar signs of development: rooftops of houses and buildings, concrete walls and roads, and the occasional soft arches of smoke emanating from factory chimneys here and there.
In the few minutes before the office spaces next to mine start filling up with people and the sounds of the daily grind, I say a prayer of thanks to our Lord. I thank him for the new day, my wonderful job, my great staff, my family and countless other blessings.
But I also thank him for the clear signs he gives me through the “green patches” in an otherwise grey world.
To me, the green leaves struggling to keep themselves above the pollution of everyday life is a very clear sign of “hope”. As the world encroaches into the natural habitat of these trees and plants, the once open air and vast amounts of sunshine are blocked out by the rising concrete structures of man.
So what does the tree do?
It rises above all these! It stretches itself upward. Up, up, up towards the sun. Where it cannot go upward, it will go left… or right. Branching in every direction – just to get a piece of that all too precious sunlight.
It never gives up.
Right below my window I see the top of an Acacia. Its sprawling limbs covered with millions of open leaves so strategically spread out that it catches the sunlight almost all day.
And then I realize: by spreading out to catch the sun, the Acacia provides a wide shade for the creatures who have invaded its natural habitat. In its desire to reach up and out for the source of life, it refreshes us who have caused it so much harm.
Yes, there is hope. Let us all stretch up and out – let us rise above ourselves, and go after that life-giving Son. Let us not be closed in by our work, our careers, our families, our friends and our selves.
Reach out. Reach up. Reach for the Son. Not only shall we have life, but our lives will be a refreshing spirit for others too.
