Sunday, September 24, 2006

Window Frame

One Sunday morning, I called my eldest son to my room. I told him to stand at the end side of my bed and look outside the window. A few seconds later I asked him what did you see. I didn't see anything, my son answered.

Again, I asked him to look outside the window and tell me what did you see. He replied, I told you dad, I didn't see anything. So for the third time, I asked him to look outside. I guided his head to where I want him to look. Then I asked what did you see? At that instance two birds landed on the roof of our neighbor's house. So my son told me, now I see something. Wanting to know his answer I asked, what is it? He said, two birds. Duh.

Before I called my son to my room, I was standing where I asked him to stand. I was looking outside my bedroom's window. There I stood to watch a body of water I started to call "the green pond ". I named her as such because she is surrounded by lush green shrubs laced with majestic coconut trees.


The green pond was etched perfectly in my bedroom's window. It was as if I was staring at a framed photograph of a body of water sprinkled by the rays of the sun. As I was marveling at God's wonderful creation, time stood still.

When I got back to my senses, I called my son hoping he too would see what I saw. But, seeing the obvious he was not able to do. Instead, for two times he told me he didn't see anything.


When I thought he would also marvel at the framed green pond, he said he saw two birds instead.

More often than not we fail to see what's in front of us. Many at time, we don't see what's ahead of us. Life is too simple that we have to make it complicated to live it.

Either, we refuse to see what is there in front of us or we just want to see what we want to see. Even if my son was staring at the green pond framed by my window, yet twice he said he didn't see anything. It was only until he saw two birds at our neighbor's roof top that he said he saw something.


Seeing the obvious is not man's best friend. We take for granted what is there in front of us, if that something has been there for a long time. We get blinded by doors, stairs and many permanent fixtures in our surroundings.

Thank God, we human beings are not just like any other permanent fixture around or we would fail to see each other.

If you want to see beyond what is obvious, train your eyes to capture snapshots of stale moments and freezing time.