Gratitude day #23

This will probably sound a bit weird, but I am grateful for a small piece of sky. I know, I know. How can I, as an African, be grateful for a small piece of sky? After all, isn't the attraction of Africa supposed to be the massive, wide open sky? But you see, this is not just any small piece of sky. This is the small piece of sky that is bounded by the walls of the quad outside my office.

I haven't taken a photo of it, because I know that no photo could ever convey the emotion it evokes in me. That small piece of sky, free of any horizon, often seems to hold the most incredible cloud formations, or be the most incredible shade of blue. Sometimes it has birds flying across it.

I love that small piece of sky. I love it because it is just so beautiful. The beauty it constrains often takes my breath away.

But I also love it because it is so surprising. I mean, I'm a country girl at heart - wide open vistas of mountains, rivers, oceans, fields are what appeal to me. Yet here I am, in the midst of a busy, noisy city, appreciating a small piece of sky.

I love it because it makes me look up. It often stops me in my tracks with its beauty. Whatever it is that I am so frenetically busy with falls away for a few moments as I gaze up and appreciate the small rectangle of sky. For those few moments I could be anywhere - miles away in the country. For those few moments, whatever was eating away at me stops. I love it because when I look up, I look at freedom. I feel freedom. I live freedom. I breathe freedom.

And often, that is enough to restore my soul and give me strength for the next few hours.

And so I am grateful for that small piece of sky.

Skies of freedom

One of the things I remember best about the UK is walking on the commons. Not because they were pretty, or anything, but because they were the only places in London where you could see the sky. The lack of open sky is one of the reasons I found London so oppressive. My spirit would long for weekends in Guildford, or anywhere out of the city, where the sky was unfettered, unimpeded. Returning to SA, one forgets all too quickly what a blessing it is to see the sky.

Just recently, in the maelstrom that has been my life, I would catch myself driving somewhere, paying no attention whatsoever to the road. Instead, my eyes would be glued to the sky. I would be drinking in the vastness of it, the colour, the wind-sweptness (is there such a word?)... eternity made visible. Somehow, blocking out everything else and just focusing on that would grant me enough peace to carry on. Similarly, when I felt I was drowning, I would find myself longing to be outside, staring up at the sky.

While browsing through my photos this afternoon, I realised how many photos I have of skies - cloudy, rainbows, sunsets, moon risings, sunrises, mountains lifted high against them, even an unintentional self-portrait of my hair against the sky.... It made me realise that there is something truly spiritual about skies. They breathe freedom into my life. (Maybe that's why prison cells have no windows with a view of the sky....)

I find it interesting therefore, that the gospels describe how Jesus left, rising into the sky. Revelation (not Revelations, people!), similarly, talks about Jesus returning from the skies. What is it about the sky that is so elemental, so fundamental, so profound? Is it merely that it is so vast? Or is there something more to it?