Having occasion to take an open-air trip after a brisk shower one day last summer, the writer hailed a passing "electric," took a front end-seat, and was soon speeding some little distance out over a broad and glistening river. The smiling blue-and-white expanse above, mirrored on its tranquil surface, momentarily refreshed; but, leaving the fair scene behind, we faced the depressing prospect of an unbroken line of mud threading its way between rows of houses. Ugh, the muddiness of muddy mud! But discontent was unexpectedly routed by a query: "Some lesson must be here. What is it? Earth is needed, rain is needed; where and what is the lesson?" Along the rails sped the car, but downcast eyes saw neither road, rails nor mudpuddles—saw nothing in fact until suddenly, consciously confronted by twinkling, merry, blue and white lakelets chasing each other gleefully in the roadway.
A sermon began to preach itself to that congregation of one; opening—as usual in this particular church—with, "What can it mean?" What, to be sure, but reflection—Mind and its reflection! Mind sees either what it seeks or what it suffers itself to behold. A gross thought sees mudpuddles only; while thought seeking, or able to appreciate reflection from above, is lost for the time being to all grossness, in the beauty discerned.
Paddles here became people. We cannot do away with personal puddles; but we can do away with our sense of their grossness, by letting Spirit not only move upon the surface of their waters, but enable us to see the true reflection present. Here and now, we can accustom ourselves to seek and find the "blue and white" reflected upon each personal puddle about us, until—sooner than we anticipate perhaps—our thought, naturally and safely detached from its own muddiness, is fitted to habituate higher, clearer regions of azure blue and glistening white.
