“What happened to the trees, Mama?” she asked me with a sad tone in her voice. I replied, “I am not sure.” I drove by the trees daily. I honestly never looked at the trees. I knew they were there. I knew they were “pretty” to look at, and yet, I never genuinely looked at them.
Now that the land lay bare, I missed the trees.
Children experience the present for the gift that it is.
She did not just glance at those trees. She authentically saw those trees. She loved those trees. She felt it when they were gone.
How many trees were there? I had no idea. I drove by these tall, wondrous trees, and I knew nothing about them. My five-year-old, on the other hand, knew.
She exclaimed, “There were more than ten trees, Mama! I always counted more than ten. Some of the trees had yellow leaves, and some only had green leaves. Some were as high as the sky, but some were like baby trees!”
This conversation stuck with me. Each day we drove by those trees, I just glanced at them. I, in the rush of life, did not see those trees. Sure, I knew they were there, but I had not genuinely looked at them. I had not taken the time to appreciate their beauty. Now, they were gone.
How often do we go through life glancing? We glance at a neighbor. We glance at an exotic flower. We glance at ourselves in the mirror. We glance at our children. We glance at our husband. We glance at a friend. We have become a society of “glancers.”
We glance at social media ALL DAY LONG.
We glance at our cell phones ALL DAY LONG.
How often do you actually SEE the people you are glancing at?
How often do you take in their beauty, and what they mean to you?
How often do you study the faces of your loved ones? Do you know their eye color? Do they smile sly or have a wide-open grin? Do they have dimples? If so, how many?
Children see everything because they experience the world around them.
The adults live in a world of distraction and miss the experiences.
We are distracted by social media.
We are distracted by endless news.
We are so distracted by the next big thing that we miss “the big thing” right in front of us.
We’ve become “glancers.” Glancing at the world and not experiencing it.
How many times has your child spoken to you while you were “glancing” at your phone? Did you acknowledge them? Did you stop looking down at your phone to answer them properly? Most likely you did not, you are too busy glancing.
I am guilty of it too. I need to do better also.
One day, our children will be grown and on their own. We will most likely glance at their pictures on our phones. They will post about their adventures, and we will glance, wishing we could genuinely see them instead.
