I know its a clear day when I can see the faint outline of the Canadian Museum of Human Rights against the distant horizon of my view of the city. The museum is all of one inch tall from where I sit - a distinctive outline compared to the cluster of skyscrapers next to it. From where I sit this morning, it looks as if it has a finger of glass pointing to the sky! I love the symbol of that -- a finger pointing to the sky.
Yesterday, the skyline was lost in fog and I imagined I was in Vancouver - realizing my skyline can be anything I want it to be.
I love skylines - always have. My bucket list was to see New York - the skyline of one of the most powerful cities in the world. Years back when I was speaking in Bethlehem and taking a flight in and out of Philadelphia about one hour away from the conference, I discovered that we were passing by New York. I wondered out loud if we could drop in just to glimpse the city. My driver and another passenger were delighted. Apparently there was just enough time to have coffee on a roof top restaurant in New York Time Square.
As we sat there enjoying the scene, I wondered out loud if the people walking the streets of New York were any different than anywhere else, at which point my two professor type companions launched into their psychoanalysis of the women passing by us on the street. They saw them so differently than I did...deeper I would say. Obviously they had been studying women for a long time, officially and unofficially. It was rich with insight.
Same view but sliding interpretations.- a reminder again that what we actually see is more open to interpretation than we realize.
This morning I see a glass finger pointing to the sky. The news this morning was grim; the prophetic message I heard last night from good friends of mine was grim... yet that finger is pointing to the sky.
Traditionally in European visual art, the finger pointing upwards suggests the existence or presence of God. We can see this in their paintings of Jesus, saints, and angels making this same gesture.
I like that - I am being reminded by my skyline that there is something bigger than ourselves. We need to live with one finger pointing to the sky.
God is not a hypothesis derived from logical assumptions, but an immediate insight, self-evident as light. He is not something to be sought in the darkness with the light of reason. He is the light. - Abraham J. Heschel
Yesterday, the skyline was lost in fog and I imagined I was in Vancouver - realizing my skyline can be anything I want it to be.
I love skylines - always have. My bucket list was to see New York - the skyline of one of the most powerful cities in the world. Years back when I was speaking in Bethlehem and taking a flight in and out of Philadelphia about one hour away from the conference, I discovered that we were passing by New York. I wondered out loud if we could drop in just to glimpse the city. My driver and another passenger were delighted. Apparently there was just enough time to have coffee on a roof top restaurant in New York Time Square.
As we sat there enjoying the scene, I wondered out loud if the people walking the streets of New York were any different than anywhere else, at which point my two professor type companions launched into their psychoanalysis of the women passing by us on the street. They saw them so differently than I did...deeper I would say. Obviously they had been studying women for a long time, officially and unofficially. It was rich with insight.
Same view but sliding interpretations.- a reminder again that what we actually see is more open to interpretation than we realize.
This morning I see a glass finger pointing to the sky. The news this morning was grim; the prophetic message I heard last night from good friends of mine was grim... yet that finger is pointing to the sky.
Traditionally in European visual art, the finger pointing upwards suggests the existence or presence of God. We can see this in their paintings of Jesus, saints, and angels making this same gesture.
I like that - I am being reminded by my skyline that there is something bigger than ourselves. We need to live with one finger pointing to the sky.
God is not a hypothesis derived from logical assumptions, but an immediate insight, self-evident as light. He is not something to be sought in the darkness with the light of reason. He is the light. - Abraham J. Heschel
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