Earth's crammed with heaven,

and every common bush afire with God,

but only he who sees takes off his shoes;

The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

i found the above quote in The Shack, a book by Wm. Paul Young. a very interesting book with lots of food for thought about God and how He chooses to reveal Himself to us, and where He is during those black times in our lives. i'm pretty sure the theology of the book isn't completely accurate, but it's not meant to be a theology book. it has made easily plunking the circumstances of my life into "good" or "bad" categories, not so easy. maybe "painful" or "enjoyable" is more accurate. we see so little. when i took our kids in for vaccinations when they were babies, i'm pretty sure their howling was an indicator that they were interpreting the circumstances as "bad". the hard lump on their chubby leg and the fever would indicate that their body also interpreted the circumstance as "bad". but when they took off for school and, later, for other parts of the world and they stayed healthy, that "bad" turned out to be very "good". i think i have an "infant" view of the world.... my life... i can say with certainty that something is "painful" for me or "enjoyable" for me... but i don't think i have the long range view to decide the "bad" for me or "good" for me....

At any rate... the book is a quick and easy read (i had a hard time putting it down) with some very intriguing word pictures.