We’re back after a short stint in the desert. We spent part of the time in Hopi – land of the three mesas, endless desert and skies.
On the drive home, we drove through a flat desert landscape of sandy browns and limestone yellows. While I enjoyed the various shapes, silhouettes, and textures of the desert landscape and found its wide open spaces exhilarating, I soon began to tire of its stark, glaring, monotone color palette that seemed to stretch on forever, without end in sight.
Just when I thought I had had enough, in the distance, we saw a patch of green – bright, refreshing, spring green! As though someone had dumped out a bucket of glowing green paint onto a canvas of limestone yellow that formed an unexpected, unnatural looking gash in the dry landscape.
The grey asphalt of the highway seemed to climb down and disappear into the green area. Just as we were about to touch it, it veered sharply away so the trees now formed a line parallel to the highway. I stared into the green, unable to look away, something about the ‘greenness’ mesmerizing me.
As I stared, as if in a trance, I caught glimpses of shimmering silver between the trees – glimpses of a stream, the life-giving water that made them thrive.
Even the hottest, driest, dustiest desert can be transformed into inviting, refreshing, life-giving groves.
Just add life-giving water.
“Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord,
whose trust is the Lord.
He is like a tree planted by water,
that sends out its roots by the stream,
and does not fear when heat comes,
for its leaves remain green,
and is not anxious in the year of drought,
for it does not cease to bear fruit.” – Jeremiah 17:7-8
~shini abraham, ©2014, duco divina – contemplative doodling
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