A Glimpse of Heaven on Earth

 People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don't even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child - our own two eyes. All is a miracle.

~ Thich Nhat Hanh

 
When was the last time you stopped to stare at the sky?

When I was younger, I used to spend hours staring at the sky, looking at the shapes of the clouds. It was always fascinating. The longer you stared, the more you could see it taking the shape of things you knew like maybe a horse, a dog, a butterfly or even a face. And as the wind blew and the bus I was in moved along, so would the clouds change in shape, forming a new sort of image all the time. Almost anything could appear in the sky and it was governed only by my imagination. For some reason, I could do this for hours on end, usually on those long bus rides alone up north to go see my mother.

But the bus rides got lesser, and I think maybe my sense of imagination slowed down considerably…. And I stopped looking at the sky. I didn’t look up anymore. And I didn’t for a good many years. Somehow, it had stopped fascinating me. Maybe it’s because I started living in the city with no clear skyline. Maybe it’s because I grew up and no longer marveled at life’s simplicities. This realization made me a bit sad. When did I start to forget how to appreciate these simple beauties of life? Wind chimes no longer enchant me; I don’t poke on the morning dews on leaves anymore; and touching the leaves of pokok semalu (a.k.a sleeping plant) and watching it close no longer makes me jump with excitement. I knew it was the same sky, same kind of dew, same plant, just a different me.

I do know it’s inevitable that we all grow out of looking at the world with fresh eyes. We all grow up, we all lose our innocence, and we all stop experiencing life with wide eyed wonder.

But I try to look up more often these days. I don’t want to stop marveling at life’s beauty, however simple, however common. I've been trying to make it a point to consciously take note of how the sky looked each and every day and appreciate it for what it is. Some days, it’s bright and sunny, some days it’s cold and cloudy, but some days when I’m lucky, when the sun is at an angle and the cloud is just clearing, I catch a glimpse of what I’d like to imagine heaven looks like. It is literally like looking at heaven on earth. When you think about it that way, you really marvel at the majesty of God.

It’s amazing how I ever forgot that.