finding treasure

God decided to hide the kingdom of heaven not in any of the extraordinary places that treasure hunters would be sure to check but in the last place that any of us would think to look, namely, in the ordinary circumstances of our everyday lives…. the extraordinary hidden in the ordinary, the kingdom of heaven all mixed in with the humdrum and ho-hum of our days, as easy to find as… a child’s smile when she awakes from sleep, or the first thunderstorm after a long drought – all of them signs of the kingdom of heaven clues to all the holiness hidden in the dullest of our days.  

                                                              Barbara Brown Taylor, Heaven, p.44

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we are all at some level treasurer hunters

all seeking for those precious things that make a life

hope, for example

or meaning

or love

or Love (

call them what you will

those are the things that comprise the kingdom of heaven

the reality is

our days are littered with treasure

with Sacred gifts

today

on a day much like any other day

a day perhaps, not to look forward

a long drive home after a long week

full of meetings and airplane flights, and airports

today treasure abounded

the sunrise oozing through the clouds

a good, hot Americano

the joy of Finn (the dog) when I arrived home

eggs in the chicken coop

a welcome from “the girls” (horses)

to be sure

there were detours along the way

the usual onslaught of horrific news

construction zones

instrusive thoughts

lingering notes of fear, and anger, and regret

not to mention guilt

and perhaps a touch of despair

but still

I could not help but trip over

treasure

sunshine on the mountain

the breeze, whispering through the aspens

signs of the kingdom

on the most common of days

Let those who have ears to hear, hear

Let those who have eyes to see, see

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Glory be to God for dappled things—

   For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;

       For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;

Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches' wings;

   Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;

       And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;

   Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)

       With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;

He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:

                                     Praise Him.

Gerard Manley Hopkins