There is a quote, “nothing is wonderful when you get used to it.” I find that to be true too often in life. When we started this year-long, 7,000-mile journey, we started from Hammond, Indiana, and headed down Illinois’s heart. I grew up in Illinois and knew it well. Let’s just say it would not be the part of the trip that excited me. I knew this territory, landscape, and people well, and as the saying goes, I did not find it wonderful.
Then something magical happened. I saw the familiar through fresh eyes and a different perspective; this perspective took a dramatic shift. I saw the landscapes, rivers, and the beauty from the river that I previously took for granted when on land. We saw bald eagles in their majesty hunting for lunch, cranes in their elegant beauty, the majestic hills where the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers meet, the trees and hills in their splendor.
It was a refreshing change, one that delighted and surprised us. Perhaps we took for granted what we got used to, stopped seeing the beauty right in front of us. We rejoice in the change.
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