Today's Joy: Shark Week.
If you're like me, Reader, you wait all year for the Discovery Channel's annual fear vs. fish spectacle: Shark Week! For that 7-day stretch, I try to get home in time to catch each night's new shark-themed special as well as re-runs from previous years. It's amazing what you learn from watching people-with-a-death-wish climb into the water and into crazy aluminum cages to dangle themselves in front of these fascinating and enormous predators.

I'm definitely an armchair shark enthusiast. Love learning all about these creatures and how they live. However, I have zero interest in getting in the water with them. Much prefer the safety of a swimming pool or land-locked lake. Yep, call me a wuss, but it's true. Thank goodness, then, for the wacky risk-takers who don't mind getting up close and personal with every kind of shark. Without them, there would be no fabulous underwater footage of these magnificent animals for me to enjoy from the safety of my own home. God bless the people who are called to work with the more dangerous elements of God's creation.

Today's Joy: Observation, Physical Form & Appreciation

Spoke to a good friend via Facebook this morning, Reader, and we both savored having a little unhurried time to just enjoy the day. God does such great work that it really is a shame to not look around us and observe the fine points & minute details of His creation.

Look at this wildflower, for example. Look at those cute little curly things in the middle. See how the edges of the petals look like they've been clipped by pinking shears? True, I don't know the technical names of the flower parts. I don't have any botany facts to back up my observations. But I do know when I see a little miracle of creation in front of me. What a beautiful form for reproduction to take! Of course, you'd never see the intricacies or appreciate the complicated design of such a thing if you didn't put down your cellphone or laptop or tear yourself away from a meaningful discussion with the GPS to notice the physical world around you.

In 2010 it is very possible to spend the majority of your day effectively living in your head and not engaging the world around you at all. But if you're like me, Reader, something inside you becomes uneasy when you realize the day has gone by and hours of physical sensation have become a blur. I believe God wants us to live spiritually, to reach beyond our physical limitations. But he also gave us these physical bodies, the ability to analyze & appreciate and all these amazing sensations for a reason. What a waste to leave your body effectively "parked" at a work station for hours while your mind is off tripping through cyberspace or daydreams.

Flesh & blood vessels are not designed to be docked like an Ipod. We are designed to interact and be vital. We're designed to love and learn and touch everything around us with an insatiable curiosity to know. We are capable of so much more than sitting and staring while our neurons fire and we play out some alternate existence on a flat screen.

There is a synergy, a compilation in creation that melds our physicality with the power of our thoughts. I suspect that partnership is our true medium. And I bet that's the experience God wants us to have. A balance between all that freaky mental energy rolling around in our heads and the amazing capability for expression in our physical form. It really is mind-boggling.

Long story short: take out your earbuds for a moment, Reader. Pull your hands off the keyboard. Turn off the blue tooth for just a few moments and take a deep breath. Close your eyes and listen to the environment around you. Listen to what you were oblivious to a moment ago. Listen to your own heart beat. Then open your eyes and look around.

What do you see?