Awe

It's the warmest January here yet, and the temperature is calling weeds up from what should be a frosty ground, and trees and bulbs are being fooled into budding forth with confidence. On one hand I'm not happy, because the season of rest for the garden and the gardener has been interrupted. On the other hand, it is magical in its exceptional oddness. The mist visible through the trees quiets and tempers the landscape and the smell of moist ground is one of those things I love most about North Carolina. Passing by an open pasture in the afternoon I thought, "A cloud has touched the ground." 

​In the bursting green of the newly minted weed beds of my garden, I see -- well, yes--a lot of work to be done. But I can also see the image of the insistence of life. I choose to watch in awe as my expectations are befuddled. Once again I learn to hold my plans loosely, be light on my feet, and laugh with God. *

​Awe is an intuition for the dignity of all things, a realization that things not only are what they are but also stand, however remotely, for something supreme. Awe is a sense for transcendence, for the reference everywhere to mystery beyond all things. It enables us to perceive in the world intimations of the divine. ... to sense the ultimate in the common and the simple: to feel in the rush of the passing the stillness of the eternal. What we cannot comprehend by analysis, we become aware of in awe. 
                                                                                                                                     -Abraham Joshua Heschel

From the Yiddish proverb, Man plans and God laughs.