Most likely you went on holidays this past summer. When did your holidays begin? Was it when you threw the last bag in the car and your wife checked to see if the stove and the iron were off for the third time or was it when you got to where you were going?

I and the family have just recently returned from holidaying in Nova Scotia. We went to visit some dear friends and stayed at their trailer. (Peter and Debbie et al, you guys rock!) For me the holidays started as soon as the car was moving. Actually, if truth be told , it started as soon as I got out of Toronto traffic. It is hard to be in the holiday state of mind when you are thinking thoughts about the guy who just cut you off that will require some heavy repenting!

For my kids, though, as good as they were, and as much as they slept, they really didn’t enjoy the travelling part as much as I. Don’t get me wrong. They are amazing travellers. Never once have they uttered those fateful words: “Are we there yet?” But there was the occasional question about where we were as they moaned and snored and moved in and out of consciousness.

Part of the enjoyment of this trip for me was the fact that we went to Nova Scotia via the States. Having lived in the Maritimes for twelve years , this particular trip through upper New York State, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine, not to mention New Brunswick and Nova Scotia is one of my absolute favourite drives. There is so much variety!

This time around, though, it was the first time I took this route as an OAP (Obsessed Amateur Photographer). Thus most of my travel conversation had something to do with all the great shots I was missing along the way. I wonder if that had anything to do with my kids lack of enjoyment? Nah! Still, after a while I sensed that some in the van were getting tired of me pointing and sighing and mumbling, so I consolidated my comments into one word: “click.” Every time I went by something that I’d have loved to have stopped and take a picture of, I would, in wistful tones, say “click”. In some places my click counter was keeping time with the kilometre clicks on my odometer!

This was my way of letting the rest of the people in the car know that I was sacrificing prime artistic opportunities for their travelling sanity. I know, I know, you are impressed. I am just that kind of a sacrificial dad and father. I live to make my family happy. More to the point, Sheila also has keys to the car and I was afraid of being left behind with nothing left but my art and my thumb to keep me company.

To be fair, the rest of the van sacrificed some. There were a few times when I was actually allowed to stop to stretch and click. But, alas, those times were not enough to keep me from longing for all those could have been, but never were shots. Through the eyes of a salivating snap shooter I realized that there were absolutely hundreds of glimpses of beauty and life that I had never seen before. Some were spotted passing an intersecting road or through a clearing in the trees, or off in the distance. Some places could never be photographed, at least in the way I was travelling, because the roads were too busy, or there was nowhere to pull off. Some of these sites are most likely enjoyed by those who live near them, but some of them, I bet, are driven past and never noticed or appreciated by anybody. Oasis unnoticed. Bits of beauty just beyond the road that lies between points “A” and “B”.

This realization made me think about beauty from a different angle. Maybe it is just that I am more self-centred than most but, in the past when I’ve thought about the beauty of creation, I have thought about it in terms of my (and your) enjoyment. God put all this beauty in the world for us to enjoy and explore. It’s all about us! I still believe this to a certain extent. After all, God wants us to experience the beauty of His creation and then glorify His Name, but there is more to this beauty of creation thing that just us.

Beauty is everywhere, even places we can’t see. It’s in galaxies that can’t be seen even with the hubble telescope. It’s in things too small to be seen by the human eye. Beauty can be found on the highest of mountains and the deepest of seas–places none of us will ever visit. What’s the point? The point must be that beauty is in all of these places because God can’t help but create beauty. To put it another way, what God creates is beautiful by the very fact that God created it. Sure beauty is here for us to enjoy, but more than that, beauty is here because God is here.

Questions to ponder:

1. If your life isn’t beautiful right now, why is that? How much attention are you giving to God’s recreation of your life?

2. Could it be that there is more beauty in your life right now than you have noticed? Maybe you need to slow down and look for those intersections and clearings? Maybe you’re not looking to capture it? Everyone has more beauty in their life than they are noticing.

3. Beauty comes in many shapes and sizes. Maybe you can’t focus on it because you are too close to see the whole picture, or maybe you aren’t close enough to see all the beautiful detail. Either way, I am sure that God has created beauty in your life, now go find it, enjoy it and share it with others!

Some people are summer people; some people love spring. I guess there may be one or two Nordic types who like the winter best of all. But for me, the fall wins the seasonal game, leaves down! Why do I love fall best of all? Bugs die in the fall. The sky seems bluer in the fall. The air is clearer in the fall. The earth smells richer in the fall. The clouds are more expressive in the fall. Most of all the trees do their enhanced color dance in the fall. Most of all, I get to take all kinds of pictures in the fall, like the one that accompanies this piece.

Here’s a question for you: do you know why the leaves change color in the fall? If you think that it’s because of the frost, you’d be wrong. Temperature is a factor, but it’s not the main cause of the colour canopy. The main cause of the leaves changing colour is light, or lack thereof. It seems that as the days grow shorter (grow shorter, is that like military intelligence?), the trees stop producing chlorophyll. Chlorophyll, you will remember, is the green stuff in leaves that produces food for the tree using sunlight.

Here’s another fall fact. The yellow, or red that we see coming to the forefront, was always there. In other words, the leaves don’t change colour; it’s just that the green goes away; leaving the ever-present yellow. Interesting, eh?

Let me give you one more leaf fact and then “leave” the rest of the leaf mystery for you to investigate on your own. Do you know why the leaves fall off the tree and become kitty litter for the frolicking forest folk? They fall off because the veins in the leaf become so constricted by the cold, that they no longer have any sap flowing between the leaf and the branch. Things completely clog up and the leaf dies and falls off.

OK, so what do I want you to learn from these leaf lessons? Do I want you to marvel at the majestic beauty of God’s creation? Sure, go ahead, but I’m not happy to “leaf” you there. Sorry, but it just doesn’t satisfy my warped perspective.

What I want you to do next, is to think of these multicolored treasures as our sins. Yep, I want you to think about all of those brilliant yellows and bright reds as ugly, rancid, rebellious sin. Take a drive out in the country, if you want to, and cringe at the multitude of sin that abounds. Don’t I have a wonderful way of making the beauty of fall “special”? Well, before you write me off completely, let me explain.

Remember that I said that the yellow in the leaves was really always there, but it’s just that in the summer, the green of the chlorophyll covers that yellow. Well, it’s the same with Christ. Jesus is our chlorophyll. The life-giving green of his righteousness covers our sins. There, are you feeling a bit better now? As long as Christ is present in our lives, the green completely covers our yellow ickies and we have a productive, life-giving existence.

But there is more. In John 8:12, Jesus said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” Ah, do you also remember that I mentioned that it was the diminishing light that triggered the end of the tree’s chlorophyll production? Jesus is our light. When we walk in His light; when we reflect His light, we are all green and crisp-with supple hearts. But, when we ignore our relationship with Him and we cut ourselves off from the long days of summer, our sins start to come to the surface. Soon, it’s obvious to us and everyone else that the spiritual life is draining from us and our sins begin to show through as we dry up.

Remember also that the leaves fall off the tree because all communication between the branch and the leaf is clogged up and cut off. When that happens, the leaf dies and falls. Well, Jesus tells us the same thing will happen in our spiritual lives, if we don’t remain in Him. In John 15:5, He declared, “I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” Let me paraphrase Jesus’ words by saying, “Don’t be a sap by cutting off the sap! If you cut off the sap, you’ll end up falling for a long winter nap!”

There is one last thought I want to leave with you, and hopefully this thought will redeem my fall discourse. Isn’t it interesting that leaves show their greatest beauty in death? They have spent the spring and summer of their lives growing and producing lots of fruit, but now is the time for them to die. And die they do, in a blaze of awe-inspiring eye candy. Can death for anyone who has spent the spring and summer of their faith abiding in Christ and producing His fruit be any different? Nope, there is nothing more beautiful then a life spent abiding in Christ. Such a life always goes out in a blaze of glory!

One of the things that I noticed upon returning to Toronto back in 2001, was the proliferation of tags, graffiti, and the assorted sprayings that adorn, or perhaps, better said, obscure many public surfaces. You can’t go by a newspaper box, mailbox, street sign, electrical box, or unprotected building without seeing something scribbled on it.

As I write today, we have some minor tagging on our church building. Some on our brick and some on our emergency exit doors. I know I have to get to work and clean that up soon or more will collect. Graffiti is like pigeons or seagulls. Once there is one, others follow and the mess only gets bigger!

I have read that both urban graffiti, as well as, litter have a huge psychological impact on a neighborhood. The more garbage and graffiti the higher the crime. Why is it that people feel the need to mark their (or at least what they think is their) territory? Is a tag a poor man’s monument? Do I look at a tag and go, oh, “Bif” or “Lester” is a great guy, after all, this stop sign was merely a serviceable stop sign until he came along and defaced it?

I take comfort in the fact that graffiti has always been a part of urban life. In World War 2, US soldiers often wrote the “Kilroy was here” slogan wherever they went. I also know that you can find ancient graffiti in Pompeii and elsewhere, much of which were political or editorial comments of one sort or another.

Perhaps tags and graffiti are a way, however destructive and ugly, of proving one’s existence. It seems to me, though, that public defacement for the sake of scribbling your initials, is just plain nasty and selfish. I wonder do taggers ever actually tag their own homes?

Still there is another side to this spraying scenario. Not all that is deposited in the community is ugly and destructive. Since coming to Toronto, I have also found amazing works of graffiti art. Piece large and grand and colourful. Some in secluded areas, public yes, but not in the open, more like in the alleyways and back of buildings. Some beautify abandon buildings others beautify garage doors. The picture accompanying this blog was taken by me in our neighbourhood and it is just one of several pieces that I have photographed and put on my flickr site. There is no doubt in my mind that some of this kind of creative, expressive work is wonderful and welcome. It doesn’t destroy public property, it respects public property. It doesn’t profane, it breathes life and communicates. Some of these pieces of street art, as I call it, make our alleyways art exhibits and they deserve to be appreciated and seen. It is a way of sharing ones’ life in a creative, expressive way.

How do you leave your mark each day? Does it contribute to what is beautiful or ugly? Is it selfish, or giving? Does it deface what is beautiful or does it enhance with new life? What are the effects of your emotional graffiti? Each one of us is part of many communities, we all contribute something, whether we want to or not. At the end of the day are you a tagger or an artist?