Let There Be Lights

A fierce debate often ensues when one person believes Christmas lights should be hung the moment the last trick-or-treaters leave their abode and another person believes the stroke of midnight on November 30^th is the earliest possible date any form of holiday decoration is allowable.
I pondered this as I recently walked among the holiday lights at the Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens.
Personally, I have never put up outdoor lights — perhaps because I spent almost twenty years renting and it just wasn’t “my territory.”
However, I do put up a Christmas tree that remains decorated until spring, most years.
The lights are so comforting, so enthralling, so enchanting, that I can’t seem to take the tree down (um, yes, it is artificial).
Even though I can be a Grinch at times, I don’t want to rob anyone of the wonderful feeling lights give me and potentially give others.
So, no matter what time of year it may be, let there be lights!

Photos © Sondra Sula.

Take a walk with me by reading my daily devotional book, Meditations on Mendocino by Sondra Sula. Available on Amazon in paperback or Kindle versions.

If you’d prefer a daily river walk, Reflections on the Fox River and Beyond by Sondra Sula, might just be the book for you.

Judge Not

“Basic Instincts” by Sondra Sula

I came across a flower filled to the brim with activity: bees buzzing, bugs snacking on pollen, beetles mating. There was even a moth being eaten by a yellow spider that matched its petaled perch so well, I didn’t realize it was there until I viewed an enlargement of the photograph I had snapped. When I beheld the newly detailed scene on my computer screen, it seemed incredibly immoral: gluttony, sex, murder. But I soon realized this reflected my own human judgment. Every creature was behaving exactly as was intended by its creator.

“The End” by Sondra Sula

I began to consider my judgment of those belonging to the Homo sapiens species. The biblical command to “judge not” has followed me around for decades, tossing examples in my face at every turn. I have consciously been working on becoming a less judgmental person for the past thirty years and am continually amazed by the subtle judgments I continue to make.

Observing nature teaches me numerous lessons because it is a place without judgment. The spider is not passing judgment on the beetle or vice versa. Now if only I can do the same.

“Gorging” by Sondra Sula