The Road Scholar - Day 8

So a full day is finished, and I am sitting in Pauls
Valley, OK, a quaint little town about 60 miles south of Oklahoma
City. I’m actually sitting on the south end of town… no traffic
lights, no street lamps, and just the I-35 traffic, (which is very
light at this hour) with its mild din of the rubber of tires as
they gently caress the pavement, and the periodic “whoosh” whenever
a truck passes by. From where I’m sitting, the only fixed lights
that can be seen are the tall lamps the illuminate the lot of the
business just to the east, the distribution warehouse to the west,
and the refinery about 10 miles to the south. Yes, it’s dark enough
here that the refinery’s lights can be seen. The weather is calm
and slightly chilly at 39°, but very peaceful. The view offers a
large span of visibility, being able to see the interstate traffic
for about 10-15 miles. It’s nice being in an area devoid of the
usual suspects of, as some may refer to as, “light pollution.”
Times like this can allow one to ponder, even question, our own
existence, amid such a beautiful display of open sky, and possibly
even realize just how minuscule we really are. We go through our
daily lives – work, home, eat, sleep, debate, invest, spend, rinse,
and repeat – but to take a few moments of reflection in such a
place as this, usually doesn’t seem to fit into our “busy”
schedules. A view like this should help us to realize how immense
our planet (and our universe) is, and that we are but mere specks.
Then again, how can we expect somebody to appreciate the value of
life, when they are blind to the big picture? To take in such a
view, and not to ponder HOW it came to be… well, there are many
people that invest so much time and energy trying to DISPROVE the
existence of God, instead of looking around them at the evidence
which would refute their arguments effortlessly. What would those
people think if God decided to try to disprove THEIR existence? It
comes down to this: everything God has created is CONSTRUCTIVE;
everything man has created is DESTRUCTIVE. God is real, loving, and
a genius in natural architecture. We have plant life and human
life… one relies in the other for survival. Looking up into the
dark expanse of sky on a night like this, in a place like this… a
peaceful night offering an abundance of solitude, can really humble
a person, make one think that we were created and exist for a
purpose. What that purpose is, we may never fully know. But we need
to slow down, not just for our own benefit, but for our neighbor’s
as well. If we try to help another have a better life, we feel
better about OURSELVES, hence, we have improved the quality of our
OWN lives in the process of helping another. Life goes about on its
own, we don’t need to speed up the tempo ourselves. In closing, I’m
reminded of the eternal words of a GREAT philosopher, Ferris
Beuller – “Life moves fast – if you don’t slow down every once in a
while… you might miss something.”