this is my daddy tom, my mom's dad, and i miss him so much. he was such a great part of our lives and he died when i was a sophomore in high school. anyways, he would always take care of us when we were out of school for the summers and my mom had to work, or just whenever. i vividly remember when he'd drive us back and forth to his house we'd usually take the same route...but every now and then, when i noticed we were a little off path, and mention it, he just cover by saying we were taking the scenic route today. he'd take us on this one street that was kinda hilly and he'd refer to it as the 'hills and dales'...oh it makes me miss him just thinking about that.
anyway, he'd point things out and notice the ordinary and make something positive or beautiful out of them. he'd see old houses that needed to be redone and say that was a 'fixer-upper' i think he also thought that our little youth group should become involved and fix up house like the ones we'd used to see together. he was a quiet man and it was a sad day when he fell out on the front steps of his house, while sweeping the walk way (a regular pastime of his). he ended up breaking his hip, and had to go to a nursing home. while there, his Alzheimer's increased and we'd visit him a lot, but it was always SO hard.
on the regular route of our drive, he'd usually always point out this one car, it was an old red car, but he'd always say, 'look at that pretty magenta car'. i always would think that's not magenta, it's red...and later on, i remember becoming fascinated when realizing he may just be seeing that color; which i saw as red, as magenta!
now, we never did an actual color comparison test, but it is just the concept that NO ONE WILL EVER KNOW OR BE ABLE TO VERIFY WHAT YOU ARE REALLY SEEING; what goes in through your eyes and registers in your brain and comes out in an observation.
taking it a step further today, i recognized something else. the same is true about how we perceive God. i remember going to a talk in college, at church, about how to 'think of God', so that when you're meditating or praying, you can apply your newly attained ability of how to focus on a higher, more productive level. i found this profoundly interesting, that no one person ever has the same thought or picture in their mind, when they imagine God!
