How great your art . . .

I figure it must have been a day like this one when God finally sat down and rested, looked around and said, "Not bad . . ."

I got up in the dark this morning. The stars were brilliant pinpoints in a navy velvet canopy as I pointed the Prius toward Tuscaloosa. It has travelled that route so often I don't have to steer, especially on the empty roads of Sunday morning, so it offered me a chance to see the glory of a perfect late October morning in North Alabama.

There is something about the lay of the land and water along Highway 75 a few miles north of the Jefferson/Blount County line, right beyond Mitchell/Alex Smith farm, starting at the double bridges, that occasionally creates fog. Big, rolling, cotton pillows that absorb whatever comes through. The sun had appeared above Pine Mountain, but the gentle morning rays were no match for the ground hugging clouds. The Prius slowed to a crawl as I prayed that no one was stopped in front of me or speeding closer behind me. But it seemed we were alone in the grey quietness.

Then there was an explosion of light as the fog released us, and the mountains were on fire as the sun ignited the trees, flaming in red, orange, yellow and fading green, straining upward toward the cloudless, pure, striking blue, sky.

"Hallelujah"

"Who said that?" I thought, but then realized the utterance came from me in kind of a froggy tone, being the first effort I had made at speaking since waking.

I get all het up about things, about politics and politicians, about justice and injustice, about religion and religiosity, about games and losing the top to the shampoo and incorrect change at the convenience store and the TSA confiscating my snowglobe statue of liberty at the airport and having to go to Walmart, again.

But there was no heat this morning, in the air outside or in my troubled soul. All those things that I make so important seemed so small, so insignificant, dwarfed by the morning masterpiece of the One who created and is creating.

As did I.

.