| My favorite paintings and poems are about fields. Perhaps it’s because my favorite childhood memories are of running through the huge alfalfa field across the dirt road from our farmhouse. Broad, rolling, and uncluttered by bushes or trees, I loved to ride my pony across it, especially when the wind would whip thunderheads over its horizon. Its wide expanse made me feel as if the entire alfalfa field could fit into my soul.
Do you recall the feeling of wide-open freedom? Maybe on summery, blustery days spent by an open field? This poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning evokes that same feeling.
The little cares which fretted me
I lost them yesterday,
Among the fields, above the sea,
Among the winds at play,
Among the lowing of the herds,
The rustling of the trees,
Among the singing of the birds,
The humming of the bees.
The foolish fear of what might happen,
I cast them all away
Among the clover-scented grass,
Among the husking of the corn,
Where drowsy poppies nod
Where ill thoughts die and good are born—
Out in the fields with God.
Pack a picnic this weekend and ask a friend to join you for a jaunt. Find a country road, look for a large field, pull over to the side, and spread your blanket under the shade of a tree. Let the sun and the wind and the field—the bigger the field, the better—remind you of the wide-open spaciousness, the broad, big freedom we have in Christ.
I see you, the King, in all your beauty, and heaven like a land stretching afar. Thank you for such a bright, happy perspective today. |
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