Discovering Beauty

Lately I’ve been enjoying borrowing a friend’s bicycle after work or on the weekends to explore the area in a several-mile radius of the Verity campus. I, perhaps more than most people, felt that I had a good feel of the area around here due to my long-distance runs over the past five years, but after just a few bike rides I realized how much had gone unnoticed. The first day I rode only a mile down Brookville Road to a neighborhood development I’ve passed numerous times on my way into New Palestine. As I wound my way through the curving streets crossing over the creek, I eventually popped out on the other side of the development overlooking a vast green expanse. Next to this community of beautiful homes and mature landscaping was a huge park with soccer fields, a walking trail complete with mile markers, and a nine-hole disc golf course! The next day I rode north into Cumberland and found another park with basketball and tennis courts, a baseball diamond, sand volleyball, a shelter…the works! On the return to campus, I hopped on a rails-to-trails system that goes for miles in either direction. It’s obviously been there a long time, but I’ve always just passed by without so much as a second thought what it might be or where it goes.

Being on a disc golf kick last week, I got on my laptop and looked up other courses in the Indianapolis area. Finding two of them in close proximity of each other approaching the downtown districts, I decided to check them both out, again making a bike excursion out of the opportunity. (George Washington Park and Brookside Park aren’t as close as I originally thought, turning my ride into a 35-mile excursion.) I must say it’s been really fun to “disc”over these disc golf courses and other parks near to where I’ve been living the last five years; places both in the country and in very urban sections of town. Each area has something different to offer and is beautiful in its own way.

Through these recent experiences, the lesson God is teaching me is to look for the beauty that He has placed all around me. It’s there—I just have to go appreciate it. Then once I have found the beauty, I shouldn’t hold it back for myself—share the joy with others. This past week one of my highlights has definitely been in sharing the enthusiasm for disc golf and these newly-discovered parks with my friends. It’s been a blessing for me to take guys out—some in a group and others one-on-one—to these places and form bonds with them. It doesn’t really matter if somebody who’s never played disc golf in his life goes out and beats me by two shots (way to go, Stevie D!) or if I make a couple eagles and a bunch of birdies on the course—we’re out there enjoying each other’s fellowship and the beauty that God has created. It is my goal to live my life each day seeking for and finding the beauty God has created and sharing it with others.