Al Kyte's Life Take-Aways

                             

I remember a morning in the mountains years ago when I invited my mother to join me for a hike I knew she would enjoy.  She had first introduced me to her favorite wildflowers on hikes such as this.  When that morning’s hike was over, I found her sharing her excitement with other family members.  “This morning Al taught me to look up.  I have been missing too much by not looking up.”  I hadn’t been trying to teach her anything, just sharing something we both loved as she had often done with me.  Yet hearing her comment, I realized I had been pointing out a number of birds up in the trees.

Years later in Belize a friend and I had interrupted our fishing to enjoy a day of birding.  We were excited to see so many brightly-colored species that were new to us.   As we made our way along that jungle path, I noticed that our guide kept looking down, yet finding birds for us up in the trees.  At one point I just had to ask, “Wouldn’t you see more birds by looking up?”  He nodded, “I’m sure I would.  I’m looking down, but listening up.  I know the birds are up, but the snakes are down.  And we have a snake here we call ‘tres minutos’ because that is as long as you can expect to live if bitten by one.”  He was referring to the Fer-de-lance.  For the rest of that day we were all looking down and listening up.

Looking up is sometimes challenging.  Certain species of birds seem to prefer moving about high in the tallest trees, forcing us to look almost straight up to see them.  This can lead to a stiff neck— “warbler’s neck” I’ve heard it called.   

My uncle once relayed a story of the time his father came to California and saw his first giant Sequoia tree.  Apparently he looked up to see the top of that tree as he had done back on the east coast.  But the top of that sequoia was not yet in view, so he took a second, higher look to where he thought the top must surely be.  When the top of the tree was still not visible, he said he had to take a third, even higher look to finally see it.  Such a tall tree forced him to adjust what it meant to look up.  

When our own circumstances are difficult or someone lets us down that is what we can do as well—look higher to get a better perspective.  We use the term “looking up” when life is getting better, and being “downcast” when feeling discouraged.  Most often I have seen the shift from being downcast to looking up in men I have mentored during their struggles with addiction.  Those who achieve long-term recovery are typically downcast at first from consequences of the choices they have made on their own.  Their outlook changes for the better when they allow God’s love to guide those choices.   We read that God is the “lifter of our head” and essentially that is who He is to these men—and to us.  Restoration is a beautiful thing.