Leaves or no leaves, the sky is always there. The firs up on top of the Smoky Mountains are being killed by a very small insect. They say it is so small that it’s hard to see, and yet it has destroyed forests of fir trees and denuded the tops of the mountains in places.
We sometimes think if we can’t see something, it doesn’t pose much of a threat. And yet… There are many things we can’t see. Things not discovered by humankind for centuries. The tiny germs that attack our health. The tiny germs that keep us healthy. Atoms, neutrons, electrons, sound waves, and more. Did you ever think about how the t.v. signal gets to your t.v. set? I mean really. We might know the scientific reason, but when you think about all those pictures and sounds flying through the air to this antenna or that. And now up into space to bounce back again to this or that satellite dish. My mother sometimes says, if it had been up to her, we’d still be living in caves. That goes for me too.
But I do have an imagination for storytelling. Saturday at the Books by the Banks festival in Cincinnati, several people asked how I wrote stories. How do you do it? Where do the stories come from? And I never have a good answer for them. It can seem as mysterious to me as those many t.v. signals flying to televisions all over the world. Maybe even more mysterious because those in the know can explain how the t.v. signals work.
All I can say is that the sky is always there and against that sky can be many different pictures. A person’s imagination is the same. A sky waiting for the pictures to come – waiting for the story. This one bare and dramatic. The next colorful and adorned with leaves. Perhaps a majestic eagle flying alone or a formation of geese or a cloud of black birds. But the sky is there. And so the imagination is there waiting for images to show up against it.
What do you think about where stories come from? Or do you just think that some people have to stretch things to figure out a way to use the pictures they take? Whichever, imagination surely comes into play. We need stories and we need faith and love. And we need trees against the sky.
Thanks for reading. Hope you have a blessed and happy week.
” You see things and you say, ‘Why?’ But I dream things that never were; and I say, ‘Why not?'” (George Bernard Shaw)