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{"id":1161,"date":"2013-02-03T19:14:10","date_gmt":"2013-02-04T02:14:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/soulwod\/?p=1161"},"modified":"2013-02-03T19:14:57","modified_gmt":"2013-02-04T02:14:57","slug":"you-find-what-youre-looking-for","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/soulwod\/2013\/02\/you-find-what-youre-looking-for\/","title":{"rendered":"You Won’t See Unless You Look"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

$\"\"$ <\/a>When I was in high school I took up bird watching and found lots of rare birds. \u00a0I would go to places and habitats at times of years where a rare bird might occur. \u00a0There would be a flock of thousands of birds and I\u2019d pick through every one, on many occasions, on the off chance that one time I\u2019d find something out of the ordinary. \u00a0And I would often find something that didn\u2019t belong\u2013a bird from Argentina in Arkansas, for instance.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m no longer the serious birder I once was, but I still look for birds and I still check for rarities. \u00a0Today I was flipping through\u00a0The Sibley Guide to Birds<\/em> and I found these lines in the introduction: \u201cMost birders who find rare birds are looking for rare birds. \u00a0This is not to say that one can find a rarity simply by looking for it, but the observer who is prepared will find rare species far more often than the observer who is not.\u201d \u00a0Sibley goes on to say that the people who find rarities have \u201can intimate knowledge of the common species\u201d and \u201can open mind\u201d to the\u00a0<\/span><\/span>appearance\u00a0of a bird that doesn\u2019t look \u201cquite right.\u201d \u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

So much of this is true of \u00a0the life of faith. \u00a0To experience the ecstatic, the real tangible glimpses of God we must spend a lot of time with the common species. \u00a0We have to go out day to day with the regular prayer, the regular Bible study, the rote Sabbaths. \u00a0But if we are open and expectant, constantly looking for that moment or insight that doesn\u2019t quite fit, then we will find God more often than those who aren\u2019t expectant and looking. \u00a0Many people see a bird out the window and it is a just a bird, others see a bird and realize it is one of over a thousand\u00a0possibilities.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"