I got three quickies for ya. Read on if you dare…

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About a month ago, I replaced all the exterior door locking hardware on our house. I bought the parts from a shelf full of them. They had about the same features and design all around. Some were fancier sure, but basically they were the same. When I installed them, I had to make some adjustments so everything lined up. The little plate and the catch, needed to mate up. I studied this arrangement for the hour or so I spent messing with it.

Overall, a flat piece of metal with a hole, is held to the thin wood door frame by a couple short screws. A spring loaded metal thingy snaps into the hole and that’s it. Overall, this system is so flawed. No one who really wanted into our house would be stopped by it. Yes, I installed the deadbolts too.

But still, our most basic form home security, isn’t real secure.  And even if it were, my house has windows. That glass could be broken without much effort. My personal sense of peace, in increased when the place is locked up tight, but I’d be foolish to think no one could get in. Criminals, Cops or a well-meaning concerned neighbor could break through if they thought it was on fire.

If I want real security in my life, I’d better look to something more than a new lockset and little metal keys for well being and peace of mind. 

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In the garden my plants like peppers and tomatoes are growing quite well. These little tiny sprouts I stuck in the ground have developed and expanded. If all goes well they will flower and set on fruit, as many already have. From the tiniest of seeds, these organisms contain all they need to make a colorful bounty starting mid-summer through fall.

I could take the chance that a little water and some fertilizer will do enough to make their one season  life prosperous. But I do more than that. I build strong wooden trellis frames for my tomatoes. I hang a substantial string down to their bases. They twist around and hold tight to this support. They grow right up it, in fact. The peppers too get a stout bamboo stake to stand beside. I wrap a tie around that mini-post and the plant. Their flimsy green foliage blows in just a little breeze. Strapped up they stand a fighting chance against the storms of summer.

When the storms of my life come along, what foundational support structure am I going to hold on to? What is there so much stronger than me, that no matter what I’m facing, it is more powerful yet?

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I water my garden with a hose. It’s just a flimsy tube that H2O can flow through. I am an amateur plumber with little experience, but I do know this. Water flows downhill. The slightest drop in elevation and water begins to run that direction. I also know that it cannot flow uphill. It will not climb or jump or crawl it’s way any higher than from where it originated without assistance.

I was hold’n my hose, shoot’n some water on my squash-bug-infested squashie plants and something occurred to me. I was holding that sucker at waist height. Water was blasting everywhere. The hose hooks up to the hose bib on the house at knee level though, at least a foot or more lower. How can that water flow uphill, through the hose and fire out with such force? Water doesn’t run uphill…

Well, even though my green and orange 25 foot hoses connect together, then connect to the house at knee-height, that isn’t the original source of the water. Nope, that water comes through my main line, which is not higher yet, it’s probably lower. It goes from my crawl space down into the ground and out to the meter. So that water is coming uphill right??

Of course not. My water line coming to the house is fed from a central City of Princeton water tower, probably like yours is too. That tower is waaaaay up high. I could stand on my roof with my garden hose and even though I was hooked in down at the ground, it would shoot with gusto, because the tower is so tall. I will always be downhill of that beautiful blue tower, and the pressure will always be strong. Especially strong enough to water my little garden spot easily…

When I am personally plugged into a flow of life force, I think it works the same way. I may get confused and see a local connection, that I can feel and regulate with a knob. Truly though, the real power comes not from where I can see, but much higher than that. The tower I’m talking about is beyond imagination. I think the force working in our lives is endless and always abundant, but only if we understand that we aren’t personally the source. It’s way up there, and providing all we need down here.

Until next week my friends, I wish you a week of noticing the truth all around you. Showing and telling the reality of creation and sometimes, glimpses of the genius behind it…

Sincerely,

Aaron Nichols