Finding Beauty in Unlikely Places

This is the view from my back window.  On most days I think it's dreadful - nothing but brick, electric fence, aluminium roof and encroaching walls. 

This morning I noticed the telephone wires.  I notice these every day (or rather, I try not to notice them!), but this morning I noticed their similarity to a musical staff.  A few birds flew and landed on the wires.  I could almost hear God whisper, "Sing the notes, Anna."  I smiled shyly.  "The wire is a musical staff, and the birds are notes?" "I give you music every day, Anna. You have only to become aware of it."  I sing the melody, which is not bad for pigeons on a wire!  I giggle with God.

I am learning to find beauty in unlikely places.  Suddenly these encroaching walls aren't so encroaching; the music opens them up to reveal a world of wonder.  The wires aren't so ugly anymore; they are a picture of the symphony that moves and swells outside my window.  I can see the music.

Abraham Heschel said, "Mankind will not perish for want of information; but only for want of appreciation... What we lack is not a will to believe but a will to wonder."  In our quest for knowledge and wisdom, may we never lose a sense of wonder and awareness of beauty... even in the unlikeliest of places.