Things I’ve learned or love about A Million Miles in a Thousand Years…
“We get robbed of the glory of life because we aren’t capable of remembering how we got here. When you are born, you wake slowly to everything. Your brain doesn’t stop growing until you turn twenty-six, so from birth to twenty-six, God is slowly turning the lights on, and you’re groggy and pointing at things saying ‘circle’ and ‘blue’ and ‘car’ and then ‘sex’ and ‘job’ and ‘health care.’ The experience is so slow you could easily come to believe that life isn’t that big of a deal, that life isn’t staggering. What I’m saying is I think that life is staggering and we’re just used to it. We are all like spoiled children no longer impressed with the gifts we’re given- it’s just another sunset, just another rainstorm moving in over the mountain, just another child being born, just another funeral.” –Donald Miller
I absolutely believe this. I try to appreciate these things in life but I know no one takes heed to the little things every time. I say the little things but aren’t these really the big things? Enormous even? If you really sit down and think about it though, if you really looked at how amazing everything around us is, we wouldn’t graze the surface; it’s incomprehensible. How do you appreciate every single sunset? Every single baby born? Every single rainstorm?
I found this interesting because the night before I read this chapter I went to my mom’s house to take a walk with her around the neighborhood. It was nice enough to take time to walk and talking with my mom. Something simple, something important to life; that I truly appreciated. On the way home from my mom’s house there are a couple farms, some white fences, rolling hills, horses, barns, etc. I have to come up a small hill and when I reach the top I can see the farm land, and I’ve always thought it was really pretty. I’ve thought about photographing it a couple of times. That night the horizon was bright orange covered in a baby blue sky and right in the middle of the road was the sun setting. It was so gorgeous; I can see it in my mind still. It was so pretty that I turned around in my car to try and get a picture of it. By the time I turned around and came back the sun was in a totally different position and that scene I saw just minutes before, had vanished. It was meant to be appreciated in that moment because seconds later it was gone. I think this happens with a lot of things in life and it might be what Miller is talking about. We are given so many gifts to appreciate and we’re way to busy with our cell phones and jobs and ipods that we miss them, because they vanish quickly.
On one hand I do appreciate them, when they happen randomly. I don’t seek them out. While in Mexico for seven days, I had no interest in getting up at 5am to see a Mexican sunrise, I saw a tequila sunrise a couple of times, but that’s as far as I went.
“We get robbed of the glory of life because we aren’t capable of remembering how we got here. When you are born, you wake slowly to everything. Your brain doesn’t stop growing until you turn twenty-six, so from birth to twenty-six, God is slowly turning the lights on, and you’re groggy and pointing at things saying ‘circle’ and ‘blue’ and ‘car’ and then ‘sex’ and ‘job’ and ‘health care.’ The experience is so slow you could easily come to believe that life isn’t that big of a deal, that life isn’t staggering. What I’m saying is I think that life is staggering and we’re just used to it. We are all like spoiled children no longer impressed with the gifts we’re given- it’s just another sunset, just another rainstorm moving in over the mountain, just another child being born, just another funeral.” –Donald Miller
I absolutely believe this. I try to appreciate these things in life but I know no one takes heed to the little things every time. I say the little things but aren’t these really the big things? Enormous even? If you really sit down and think about it though, if you really looked at how amazing everything around us is, we wouldn’t graze the surface; it’s incomprehensible. How do you appreciate every single sunset? Every single baby born? Every single rainstorm?
I found this interesting because the night before I read this chapter I went to my mom’s house to take a walk with her around the neighborhood. It was nice enough to take time to walk and talking with my mom. Something simple, something important to life; that I truly appreciated. On the way home from my mom’s house there are a couple farms, some white fences, rolling hills, horses, barns, etc. I have to come up a small hill and when I reach the top I can see the farm land, and I’ve always thought it was really pretty. I’ve thought about photographing it a couple of times. That night the horizon was bright orange covered in a baby blue sky and right in the middle of the road was the sun setting. It was so gorgeous; I can see it in my mind still. It was so pretty that I turned around in my car to try and get a picture of it. By the time I turned around and came back the sun was in a totally different position and that scene I saw just minutes before, had vanished. It was meant to be appreciated in that moment because seconds later it was gone. I think this happens with a lot of things in life and it might be what Miller is talking about. We are given so many gifts to appreciate and we’re way to busy with our cell phones and jobs and ipods that we miss them, because they vanish quickly.
On one hand I do appreciate them, when they happen randomly. I don’t seek them out. While in Mexico for seven days, I had no interest in getting up at 5am to see a Mexican sunrise, I saw a tequila sunrise a couple of times, but that’s as far as I went.
Slow down and enjoy the sunsets... and sunrises :)
still beautiful but not nearly as pretty as it was the first time around :)
No comments:
Post a Comment