When the rain finally relented after a wet spell not too long ago, I spent a late night trying to get a good picture of Saturn. I didn’t. Instead I got an image slightly distorted and softened by atmospheric turbulence and my own processing imperfections. While putting my scope back into the garage, though, I noticed something on the tire of my wife’s car, and took the attached picture. After all the gazing upwards and thousands of exposures, it was a single exposure of an emerging cicada, at most 3 inches from the ground (and, by the way, precariously perched for destruction since I needed to move the car into the garage), which actually produced something worth keeping.
This week, as we rush out the door focused on a critical obligation, important personage, celebrity performer, or immediate supervisor, let’s not ignore our peripheral vision. Every person we encounter could be the one just coming out of the metaphorical chrysalis. Any encounter could be God’s purpose for everything we’ll do that day. And, any (possibly every) one in that list may have a reason to feel no more than 3 inches from complete destruction as we get into our car without even noticing them.
While we serve all those other worthwhile obligations, let’s not forget to serve each other and the “least” among us as well. A cicada may outshine Saturn, and the least among us may be the greatest.