Passing Through and Missing the Point

The iPod devotional I listened to on my way to church this morning considered the disciples’ question to Jesus about his use of parables. It turns out that we aren’t the first to find them at times…er…uh…inscrutable. Parables apparently seemed to the disciples like an uneconomical way to get your point across if half your listeners miss the point.

“The reason I speak to them in parables,” Jesus responded according to Matthew, “is that ‘seeing they do not perceive, and hearing they do not listen, nor do they understand.”

The presence of God, the wonder of God, the Word of God, passing right over our heads – or through one ear and out the other. I’m hearing this as I whisk my way up Fleur Drive, past the mists rising from Grey’s Lake on my right and the fluttering leaves in Water Works Arboretum on my left; past the once colorful planter medians in-between now decimated by the floods and uprooted; past the Des Moines River and its swiftly moving current and the root-torn trees horizontal along its banks; through the light controlled intersections and the morning commuters squeezing through as yellow shifts to red.

I’m imagining all these things, of course, because I wasn’t really paying attention. I was “seeing” but I wasn’t “perceiving.” All of those views have been true on previous days – the mists, the rustles, the colors, the cars – but this day preoccupations claimed my perceptions --

Apprehensions.
Anticipations.
Mentally arranging the pieces of the day at hand.

I drove on auto-pilot, stopping when forced to, turning when called for. It’s a route I’ve driven thousands of time. The truth is I think it was raining, but I wasn’t really paying attention.

Parking at the church and making my way inside, I heard the thick, lush sounds of the organ. Deanna was at the console, practicing for Sunday. The sanctuary’s darkness broken only by the organ’s music light, I slipped quietly, anonymously inside.

And stopped.
And listened.
And paid attention.

For the first time today I began to imagine what else could be in front of me this day to see – and perceive – and hear – and understand.