I Was In The Cave

I sat on my porch this morning in the dark grey of pre-dawn as the river was just coming into view.  I saw a large heron fly by and watched amazed at its gentle gracefulness gliding above the water.  Suddenly I realized I was watching its reflection on the river.  The real heron matched the dark background of the mountains across the way and was invisible to me.  I was shocked for a moment because I was sure I was seeing the real thing when I was only seeing the reflection of the real thing.  Now I know about Plato’s cave but what made me think about it this morning was that for a moment I had found myself in the cave and would have been completely content inside my show of errors.  Life has handed me so many beautiful things including the tree in this blog.  I remember seeing the tree for the first time and believing it was the most perfectly beautiful tree I had ever seen.  I thought about that tree this morning and wondered if it too were only a reflection, a mere error of consciousness, a sorrowful and fraudulent fake…and for the first time I think I understood fully the verse, “For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God.”  God is so evident in nature and when nature is most beautiful God is most evident, but only as a reflection, a sense of the real.  Only in Christ has our senses known the real to be The Real and in that moment we want Him, not only as our Savior, but as our Lord.