The dawn rises on a blank canvas; a scraggly tree, a lawn unseeded, a backdrop of mountains.  The picture is not what you think you see, but what is yet unseen. What is it that you do not see?

     You don’t see the sun, but there are its rays. First they reach their fingers across the yard, converting the foreground tree into a natural sundial, for the sun is rising behind us. As the light pours across the yard, and down through the tree limbs, something takes place. Something brings out more than the myriads of birds darting around the grass, busily collecting the seeds I threw out for the squirrel family. Something more than the light of day begs to witness to the thrift of the avian creatures; discontent to satisfy their beaks and stomachs and babes with the grain in the feeder, until they have salvaged the waste of their prodigal neighbors. After all, waste not, want not! Had the squirrel been too concerned, he would be here now to stake his claim, instead of darting there and yon. 
     Yes, something more I see, here on this blank canvas of browns and greens of every shade. Watch the cycle of the sunlight… the light from the sun that you don’t see. What is this now? The light itself is a canvas for the clouds you cannot see.  You insist that you see the weather, scant low earth clouds of mist and fog, scattered like glistening diamonds in the falling sunset, falling somewhere beyond the corners of your view. But, more than this I persist, more, so much more of Earth’s water stores fill those cumulus clouds in the sky. It doesn’t matter that you don’t see them, can’t measure their size or mark their dimension. They exist, brought to life by the light of the invisible sun. They, with the wind, are what is creating this light storm with the shadows they cast intermittently.
     As the wind blows stronger, and the barometer continues to drop slowly down, down, down, reminding me that a change is on the way; the cluster of light that hangs in the air, like some other cloud heavy with electrical charge, changes its step and motion. The light is shaken, as light waves bounce around the open hill sides, and it appears that Mother Nature is having power surges… as if we can see what a storm would look like if we could see the elements midair. The morning lightens, lightens, lightens; followed by the darkness, and the light, and the darkness again. While the wind dances around the canvas, the trees dance with their arms above their heads, and the shadows are swaying as the whole effect looks like a thunderstorm of light in miniature… but for the softly blowing wind of this quieter universe. There is no thunder… only the appearance of lightning. 
     But wait, there’s more… more than the power surges of light, like lightning bolts, and more than the clouds overhead darting back and forth between the sun and the canvas; creating this between-seasons crisis. There on the mountain tops out toward the horizon, the sun escapes the clouds; the mountains below are suddenly illuminated as with a flashlight shined from God. This beacon’s glow warms the edge of the little mountain peaks, lighting up the recesses, sharpening them for a 3-D light show of their own. Suddenly the canvas appears deeper, and extends farther back from my vantage point. No 3-D glasses required! “I’m on top of the world… looking down on creation,” as the lyrics to the old song go.
     There amid the light storm, the birds continue to dart madly around, preparing for the coming rain. Wild creatures, and stray cats of all sorts can be spotted briefly, here and there. Cars skid by in the quickly lapsing time. My husband arrives home from work. Two dogs chase each other across our view. But, I know these are not the picture God has painted for me today. They are only the visible canvas. I can’t find the words to paint the scene as it fairly crackles, like life itself. It is what is happening on that grass, those trees, those distant mountain peaks that tell the story of the unseen. Like the light, and the clouds, and the windy breeze playing the tune to which the trees dance; God is. He is alive, and there is something wild and untamed in His nature, and in His very being. We can’t lay hold on Him. We can’t tame Him; haul Him in and put a fence around Him. But, call His name Jesus, and there He comes; suddenly illuminating us with the light from God’s throne. Ezekiel saw Him, Isaiah saw Him, John the Beloved saw Him: sitting on the throne, and bathed in the light of the universe. And, what is this, a light storm from an unseen hand. And, in the end, those final seconds, God draws the night clouds over us like a blanket.