Smaller parts.

Recently, we visited the famous Museum of Science and Industry, or MSI, in lovely Chicago, IL.  There were grand, sweeping and enormous displays that promised to delight my children.  We saw intricately preserved body parts artfully done, a lovely old steam engine, a great room filled with farm equipment, and a display about the science of weather that would knock your socks off.  We saw the Apollo spacecraft!  It was so amazing and breathtaking.  I loved it all.

After I had left the stress of Chicago driving and was safely back on I-65 headed south, I finally was able to ask Sarah what her favorite part was.  "Oh mom!  When we sat and had that snack and watched the large silver ball roll through the amazing machine!  That was really neat!"  I thought.  hmm.  snack time.... OH!  We had sat, eaten cracker jack from a box, and then we stood and watched a ball bearing glide seamlessly through a really intricate Rube Goldberg machine.  It was in a walk through corner of the lunch room.  It only filled an 10 foot section of wall and unobtrusively went about showing the children all the cute little gizmos that can move a ball forward.  IT was to my eye, nice, but no big whoop.

It was Sarah's favorite part.

Sometimes we get caught up in the big, bright, shiny things and we miss the simple pleasures of life.  Sometimes we need to step back from the grand sweeping things that make us miss the truly beautiful.  It is in the quiet moments that go so often overlooked that we see God.