The Unwrapping

I was a ripper. A peaker. An unnoticing receiver. Noticing by default. The things under my nose. You can’t miss what lies in wait to capture you, hold you and wrestle you to the ground. By grace, we are entrapped by the beauty of surprise and ordinary miracles.

By grace, He holds our chin and turns our heads. With beauty.

We are the walking dead if we miss it all. I glanced a ways away and I was no longer there. I was gone. Hurled into the land of Alice’s world and a Narnia place.

I had to leave. Forgive me. The crowd was a cacophony. The china on chargers held me too. But for awhile. And then I left, to keep my peace. To go and find it. To hold fast to my soul and to open my eyes to the better banquet. One nestled in trees and leaves and lawns.

I was always an eaves-dropper. Picking up and honing in. Not missing the sounds surrounding a soul on the run. Even when I was barely awake.

And so I have some small gift. That I must unwrap. So that I may unwrap, the beauty.

Oh, how grievous I would be, if I had missed the blossom, as big as the Queen’s head or the Cheshire Cat. While dining on the finest of fine.

Seeing the shadows dance on white linen and spotless glass. Silver to the right and to the left.

I left to find more. Avoiding a melancholy grief.

Missing the divine, the holy, the huge?

Never unwrapping the gifts?

Oh how dreadful it would have been. To have never seen. Those ordinary, most extraordinary of things.