Hidden treasure

I love to find beauty in unexpected places. This shot, taken in Denali National Park, is particularly special to me for that very reason. You had to look carefully for not only the rock (a quartz of some kind, I would guess), but the tiny flowers that adorn its borders were also difficult to see unless you were looking.

This makes me wonder what beauty lies beneath the dirt, under the paths we walk each day, hidden from our view simply because nature has taken its course and deposited layers of soil and rock and decayed plant life upon it.

It has been said that we see what we set out to see. While I'm not blind to the ugliness that abounds in this world, I do find myself purposely looking for unexpected beauty because that's what I want to see. I can't ignore the blight of sin and garbage and pain; to do so would be to turn a blind eye to those who are hurting or to the world we're destroying. But I can make it a point to unearth the hidden beauty in nature and in all of us, if for no other reason than to remember that God loves us enough to often plant this beauty in places we don't expect to find it. It's rather like finding a twenty-dollar bill in the pocket of a skirt you haven't worn in eight years. The skirt might be ugly, but there's still beauty to be found in its depths!

See you along the trail...