The sky was on fire when I dropped into Warm Springs canyon. Islands of light hedged back the darkness of the sleeping valley and desert cliffs. The far ridges melted. I drew my focus from the center line and waited for memory to interpret the sight. It was past sunset hour and my eyes were hazy. But something familiar was happening.


Volcano? The searing borders glowed molten hot with drops of gold. They were of a beautiful kind of danger that moved cars to the shoulder to watch from the sloping grade. I slowed with anticipation to find a spot, but I was alone.


Concrete gravity pulled my car a little deeper into the valley floor and the image began to raise in monstrosity from my perspective. Silhouetted trees engulfed in flames jogged my memory. The orange was hot like it should be and smoke dampened the air of night. I rolled down my windows feel the winds generated with the storm that carried the warmth of a forest fire. 


The crest of orange singed the hillside as I wondered what other common dangers I had missed in their spontaneous glory. I have yet to see a real whale breech the surface of ocean as I've wanted or to lay under the Aurora Borealis. Things out of control. I wanted a picture but I knew the best details would be gone.


The night closed up all the gaps of light as I drove on from that moment. The fervor of nature was a pressing reminder. There is a God who is ruled by none.

Salt.

It has a way of indulging us in the simple things. Things that punch through our monotony. Things that make our senses real and alive.

Things like watermelon, a bath tub, a steak and an ocean soak are best with a tiny grain having much meaning: salt. It's as ordinary as the girl holding the umbrella and it always pours too fast from the spout. The irony of flavorless salt the Word makes perfectly clear: it is good for nothing because its meant for everything.

From Matthew 5...

"You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men."

Ordinary means in every way, important, in terms of objects and individuals. Water is ordinary and water is life. People are commonplace while they are also eternal. This makes for a miracle in even the easiest people to ignore. C.S. Lewis put it this way:

There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations — these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit— immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.

Perpective is necessary when being the salt of the earth starts to get boring, or when we marinate too much our own ideas and opinions and the rest of the world starts looking bland. Then we've lost flavor. Then the banality of selfishness and the ugliness of narcissism appear. If ordinary is good enough for God to use, then we all have plenty to bring to the table.