“For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I am fully known.”
~1 Corinthians 13:12
As a child I loved Highlights magazine. I particularly loved the pictures where things were hidden, images of things drawn into a scene, things that didn’t usually fit with the over all picture. The larger image might be of a forest. If you looked closely you would find a spoon etched into the bark of a tree or a camera inside the veins of a leaf. I don’t remember this magazine coming to our house. It was usually found in the doctor’s office waiting rooms. I may have been one of a only a few children who looked forward to seeing the doctor. It was all about the Highlights magazines!
A few weeks ago I was walking a newly renovated path on St. Paul’s Harriet Island. This island floods with such regularity there seems to always be some form of rebuilding happening. In the playground area I noticed the bottom part of a large tree, its roots shooting down from an elevated mound, a shiny metal slide coming out of the body of the tree. It looked like such fun. I headed over to get a closer look.
As I looked at the trunk treated to, I assume, keep small hands and knees free from splinters, I noticed the heron etched into the bark of the tree. On closer inspection, there was a fish whose body swirled out of the bark formation, whose head was created by the end of a root. I walked around the tree finding not only the heron but a large woodpecker, a tiny squirrel, a curious fox and a rabbit. A lovely large rabbit. I was filled with joy. Highlights magazine come to life!
Since then I have thought often of that tree. I wondered about the artist whose idea it was to take what may have been one of the trees damaged by the floods and to create, not only a place to climb and slide on, but an object where hidden treasure is found. I imagined the small children who discover these little unexpected gifts, their exclamations to adults nearby keeping watch. “Look, Momma! A rabbit!”
I have found that often life is its own Highlights magazine hidden game. So many times the solution to a problem is found tucked within the conundrum itself. On further reflection, questions that nag at us and cause distress, hold the answers at the edges of the query. It has certainly been my experience that each of us carry hidden gifts waiting to come into the light, waiting to be called out by the Artist within. Every parent or teacher knows this. They are the audience that is present to the joy of watching what is hidden within a child slowly become visible for all to see.
What Highlights scene is playing with your imagination these days? What gift is being teased out of the ordinary skin that is your extraordinary self? Perhaps the discovery will be yours to make all by yourself. Or maybe you need the gentle gaze of a creative eye to help find the hidden object at the roots of your life. Whichever it is, may this day, this week, this year be the time when the hidden treasures you hold become visible in the world.
