Suddenly Surprised

Every year I am surprised by Spring in that there is usually one day when I look around and all the trees are green.   It seems to happen overnight, and of course I know it doesn't.  The process from bare-limbed dormancy to full foliage activity, from bud to blossom to leaf is gradual.  Yet each phase has it's own illusionary suddenness about it.  In the same way we look into the sky and see a moon that has suddenly become full.  This illusion of "suddenly" may just a reminder of our general inattention to what is going on around us all of the time.

As in nature our lives don't just "happen."  We are continually in a process of becoming that which we often describe and experience as coincidence, happenstance, or even providence.  Our reactions and responses to events, thoughts, and emotions are usually examined in retrospect when we find ourselves wondering how we got where we are, or how did this or that "suddenly happen."

Perhaps this is what revelation is - the sudden awareness of something that is already here and has been in the process of becoming.   But, what if revelation is also continual awareness of the same processes, enabling more conscious responses and reactions which in turn shape and influence the "surprises" along our life pathway?

Maybe this is a way we can hear Jesus when he talks about fig trees, and sowing seeds, and lilies of the field, and mustard seeds, and red moons, and...   Maybe he is simply telling us to pay a little more attention to what's going on around us so that "suddenly" doesn't catch us by "surprise" so often.