like stained glass :: a guest post

Deb is married to her best friend, and mama to five children. When she isn’t cooking or cleaning, she can be found  gazing up into their eyes where grace shines abundant. Her attempts at sharing gratitude and bits of daily beauty have opened a world of writing and photos and friends she never would have imagined that first night she whispered a quiet prayer and hit publish.

Your name doesn’t seem to matter, you’re somebody’s Mom. Good morning, all of you chant, repeat to the late comers. Grandparents. The teen with her hands in her hoodie, a cousin perhaps; too bored to notice the unbearable humidity, trapped on the way to the rest of the day.

You slide your chair out of its sleeve, hear all the quick sighs of nylon anticipation. People settle in, balance coffee, umbrellas, jackets, personal space. Others circle, accumulate, form hives of speculation.

Today’s soccer game is your umpteenth. At least. Drives to fields and domes innumerable. They loom infinite, eternal. Pews set up and taken down . Up and down. And up again.

Just along the turf line, there’s a hazy backdrop. An eye-hole. You follow ripples of colour and light. Shapes float. There’s a halo of sparrow song. An ordinary meadow can do this. Scoop you up.

Crickets are having their say near the thistle. Slip away a little farther and berries sparkle, green frogs pluck their banjos. Right here in the wide open, open to anyone, it’s day all dawning like praise. Like Let the games begin! A fever pitch of circumstance. Of known. Of mystery.

You feel how everything matters. You’re nearer to your inner self. In a poem. Or song. A psalm.

Perhaps, you think,  you’ll watch the match down with the babies on the blankets. The view could be like stained glass, a clerestory, letting in Light.

I love reading Deb because this is what she does: she takes the everyday, living life things – like going to her kid’s soccer game – and opens her eyes to see what is already there, but in a different way. All of life is worship, and Deb has the eyes to see it. What a gift. Learn more of her at her beautiful blog, Talk at the Table.