Microcosm

Ground Ivy

Have you ever noticed how little you notice on a daily basis? Honestly, who has time, attention, or capital to spare looking at life through a macro lens? Someone recently kindly commended me for finding joy in the little things. I don’t feel like I really deserve commendation. Maybe I’m just what some people would call easily amused. But that comment did make me think about little things. Really little things. And how much peace and wonder can be found searching no farther than my own yard for those little things. A song writer that I like put it thus, “Love is the little things.” Well, I’m sure that’s been said before, and by wiser people than Pomplamoose. (Really, how much wisdom can you expect to originate in a pop song?) But what if they’re right? I imagine God put a lot of love into little things. I imagine it delights Him when we find delight in them. So here’s the best I can do without a macro lens; welcome to the Mark Haley Holler Love Microcosm Tour.

  

  

  

  

     

 As I was wandering around my water-logged yard, kneeling to take pictures of tiny flowers, Abe said, "Mommy, 'ookit dis!" And I thought he meant the rake handle, but then I saw the rake handle had a resident! Abraham was in microcosm mode too! 

And here's one of my favorite little things, in a tree.

 What I found out while doing this microtography was that if I got close enough to take the picture, I also got close enough to smell the smells. Ground ivy is very pleasant and minty. I kind of want to cover my whole yard in it. I got close enough to hear sounds of water moving through the dirt beneath me under the pressure from my body. I got close enough to feel the springy-ness of that ground cover vine with the tiny, white, four-pointed flowers. It was very multisensory, and it stopped mattering that it was wet and overcast. I had peacefulness for a couple of hours in the middle of a difficult week.