40. Winter ALWAYS turns to spring. A blessed Easter Resurrection to all!
Sometimes it doesn't seem like it. We've had some winters in recent years that made me think spring was never coming back again. The ones I hate the most are the ones that are long, hard, cold, gloomy, but you survive them, and wait with bated breath for the thaw. . .
and the thaw comes, and the crocuses come up . . .
and you're just starting to release your breath and sing praises. . .
-----and a deep freeze from you-know-where sets in!
(Do they have deep-freezes you-know-where?)
The thermometer dips into single digits, the crocuses shrivel up (you can hear them crying), the clumps of daffodils wish they could change their minds and tunnel back down, and robins sit on branches, puffed up into little balls, shivering and discussing their Florida winter in annoyed chirpings.
This winter wasn't like that at all, where I live. The thermometer hung out in the 50s and 60s with some forays into the 70s. Sunshine was often in evidence. We had, if I recall correctly, two winter days in November, two or three in January, about a week in February, and that was it. It was pleasant, but unnerving. Are we also going to be 30 degrees above normal in July?! Once again, we missed spring, but in a different way. During about one week in March, everything from crocuses to lilacs and tulips bloomed, and that was it. 80s. Welcome to summer, and you're going to have to hire someone with a Real Mower to do the labyrinth park before you can even ride the mower around it.
Life is the same way. You can sit in cold and gloom and dark until you're pretty sure the sun will never shine again. Your heart lifts in wary hope at every sign of God's glory leaking through the clouds, and then plunges in despair when the next calamity strikes. Is it worth it? Or everything seems unnervingly Nice, and you try to enjoy the gift of each day without looking too deeply into its mouth or waiting for the other shoe to fall. (Was that enough metaphors for you? I could throw in something about tempting fate, the sword of Damocles, or maybe Murphy and his infamous Law!)
Here's what I've learned: Spring always comes. Always. Always. Eventually. Really. Hold on, and wait for the Resurrection. Not just the Big One, in the Sky By and By, but the little, daily resurrections that God sends in the midst of the doom and gloom. And meanwhile, do enjoy the bright days. And don't look in their mouths.
CHRIST IS RISEN! HE IS RISEN INDEED!!
Sunday, April 8, 2012
40 Ways My Labyrinth is Like My Life--#39
39. It never stops growing, no matter what.
I suppose this may not be true in the strictest sense. I know that when the temperature falls below 40 degrees, grass stops growing, and most other things are dormant in the winter, too. Some things actually have to have a certain number of days below freezing in order to thrive. But that dormant season is only for the purpose of resting and storing energy so that everything can begin anew in spring.
It starts before you can see it. Underneath a crust of snow, perhaps, or down in the mud of an early thaw, roots begin to stir. Insects and worms think about moving again. Sap starts creeping up the “veins” in tree trunks and vines. Long before any green appears, there’s a red tinge to briers, but you only notice it at a distance, where there are a lot of branches together in one mass. After a while, there’s a certain odor—more like a feel to the air. It’s almost as if your own veins begin to stir a little, your brain cells start to stretch and yawn.
Then one day, the grass is suddenly greener than it was last week, and there are hard little buds on the reddening berry vines and a reddish tinge up in the very tops of the tall trees, too. Then—there it is! A crocus! Those birds and beasts and berries and leaves that were slowly stretching a week ago are in a tearing hurry all at once, and you’re already behind on mowing and digging and planting . . . and it’s spring!
I’ve lived long enough to spend a lot of time feeling sluggish and dormant and worrying that everything in my heart looks dead and brown and hopeless. I’ve learned that most of what seems dead isn’t, that it’s easier to tell what is truly past hope and needs cut off after the greening season begins again, and most important of all, that only the Master Gardener knows for sure which is dead and which just needs pinching back in order to spring forth twice as vibrant as before. The problem is, of course, getting pinched back hurts! It doesn’t feel like something that’s going to cause growth. I don’t like it! I don’t suppose my grape vines, do, either.
I always apologize and try to do it gently and quickly. I’m pretty sure they’re okay with it. Because it’s the growth, the fruit, that really matters.
Thursday, April 5, 2012
40 Ways My Labyrinth is Like My Life--#38
38. Heaven can see all of it, all the time.
Throughout these weeks of Lent, one of the continuing themes has been the confusion that can occur when the path seems to lead in directions you wouldn't expect. You can sometimes see the center, but not the path, or see the path, but not the center. Many labyrinths are flat, made on stone or concrete, and a walker can see all of them at once from anywhere on the path. Mine is flat, too, and now, while the trees and vines are young, you can see most of it. But as it grows, that will be less possible.
In life, however, you can never see more than about three steps back and one or two forward. Sometimes it's hard to see your own toes! Don't you wish you could rise up to about treetop level and look down on the whole pattern of your life? Even if you still couldn't see the future, it would be nice to find out if there was some semblance of a pattern in what has already taken place. Or maybe it wouldn't. Maybe we still couldn't recognize the pattern even if we could see it. The problem is, the path is years long (sometimes many fewer years than we wish, sometimes many more. . .) and on top of that, there's this unbelievable jumble of paths overlooking and intersecting each other. Every person in your life, from the waitress you met once to your parents and spouse and closest friends, whose lives have intertwined with yours (and yours with theirs) for decades, has a pattern all his or her own. Who could possibly make sense of the fractals and Golden Sections and spooky quantum physical weirdness that results from all that?
God can, that's who. Only God. Heaven sees my labyrinth, and yours, and hers and his and theirs. The rain falls and the sun shines and there are droughts and feasts and famines and epidemics and lush bounty and blessings beyond the possibility of numbering. And that's enough.
Throughout these weeks of Lent, one of the continuing themes has been the confusion that can occur when the path seems to lead in directions you wouldn't expect. You can sometimes see the center, but not the path, or see the path, but not the center. Many labyrinths are flat, made on stone or concrete, and a walker can see all of them at once from anywhere on the path. Mine is flat, too, and now, while the trees and vines are young, you can see most of it. But as it grows, that will be less possible.
In life, however, you can never see more than about three steps back and one or two forward. Sometimes it's hard to see your own toes! Don't you wish you could rise up to about treetop level and look down on the whole pattern of your life? Even if you still couldn't see the future, it would be nice to find out if there was some semblance of a pattern in what has already taken place. Or maybe it wouldn't. Maybe we still couldn't recognize the pattern even if we could see it. The problem is, the path is years long (sometimes many fewer years than we wish, sometimes many more. . .) and on top of that, there's this unbelievable jumble of paths overlooking and intersecting each other. Every person in your life, from the waitress you met once to your parents and spouse and closest friends, whose lives have intertwined with yours (and yours with theirs) for decades, has a pattern all his or her own. Who could possibly make sense of the fractals and Golden Sections and spooky quantum physical weirdness that results from all that?
God can, that's who. Only God. Heaven sees my labyrinth, and yours, and hers and his and theirs. The rain falls and the sun shines and there are droughts and feasts and famines and epidemics and lush bounty and blessings beyond the possibility of numbering. And that's enough.
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
40 Ways My Labyrinth is Like My Life--#37
37. In order for someone to eat, fruit has to give its life.
Worse and worse! Okay, so the flowers of youth and beauty came along, and we oohed and aahed and enjoyed them, and then they faded and fell. We were sad, but behind the petals small, hard fruits began to swell. So we said, "Well, the flowers have to fade to produce fruit, and we'll be glad for the fruit, so I guess we can sigh and live without the flowers."
Then we pick it. And eat it. And it's gone.
The tree is stripped of all that fruit it worked so hard to make, and its leaves are dry, and rusty at the edges. It looks tired, drained. The summer is over. Autumn arrives, and even the leaves fall.
The tree stands, silent, bare, spiky. . . dead? Not dead. Sleeping. Waiting.
But we, who eat the fruit, live on because of it. You could even say that the fruit has lived and died for its purpose, fulfilled the reason for which it was created, and moved into a "higher state of being." It's changed from juice and peel and crunchy flesh to bone and blood and human muscle.
Weird.
Is it glad, this little fruit? Is the tree happy, fulfilled? Is it content to wait quietly for spring?
I don't know. Here's what I know: The tree is not finished. There will be more leaves. There will be lovely blossoms again and we will ooh and aah. New little fruits will swell and grow and fill us and become us and we will live on because of them.
Spring will come again.
Worse and worse! Okay, so the flowers of youth and beauty came along, and we oohed and aahed and enjoyed them, and then they faded and fell. We were sad, but behind the petals small, hard fruits began to swell. So we said, "Well, the flowers have to fade to produce fruit, and we'll be glad for the fruit, so I guess we can sigh and live without the flowers."
Then we pick it. And eat it. And it's gone.
The tree is stripped of all that fruit it worked so hard to make, and its leaves are dry, and rusty at the edges. It looks tired, drained. The summer is over. Autumn arrives, and even the leaves fall.
The tree stands, silent, bare, spiky. . . dead? Not dead. Sleeping. Waiting.
But we, who eat the fruit, live on because of it. You could even say that the fruit has lived and died for its purpose, fulfilled the reason for which it was created, and moved into a "higher state of being." It's changed from juice and peel and crunchy flesh to bone and blood and human muscle.
Weird.
Is it glad, this little fruit? Is the tree happy, fulfilled? Is it content to wait quietly for spring?
I don't know. Here's what I know: The tree is not finished. There will be more leaves. There will be lovely blossoms again and we will ooh and aah. New little fruits will swell and grow and fill us and become us and we will live on because of them.
Spring will come again.
Tuesday, April 3, 2012
40 Ways My Labyrinth is Like My Life--#36
36. In order to get fruit, flowers have to give their lives.
I can't really believe these posts are coming up right when they are. I wrote and numbered these last year, and this year am simply taking them in the order they come and pondering them, then writing devotionals about them. "In order to get fruit, flowers have to give their lives." Who in the blazes thought of this piece of wisdom?!
That was me, I guess. Last year, when both my husband and my mother were still alive. I watched the petals fall, as they have fallen in this past week from my old June apple tree, papering the garden underneath with snowy fragrance, and I mused, "Hmmm, we talk about the flowers that never fade, but in fact, if the petals didn't fall, there would never be apples."
I thought there was a good metaphor for life in there. The things you love so much in your life fall away, and you grieve them, but maybe there will later be fruit, even from that loss.
Yada yada.
It's so easy to write about. . . when it's not happening. It's even possible to taste and share and rejoice (bittersweetly) in the growth of compassion and generosity that you discover when, for instance, a much-beloved husband is finally set free from a long, torturous illness. But when you have just begun to rise again from that long draining and exhaustion, and then you lose a vital mother who came from a long line of people who lived 90 years and more and was in no way ready to go. . . what fruit could be worth that? It's also possible to have blossoms fall before they are mature, and produce no fruit at all.
Then again. . .It's not true that she was in no way ready to die. In the only way that matters, she was always ready to die. That is, she was in the path and never left it and never turned back and never gave up. She has arrived at the Center of Centers. And she certainly produced fruit, a hundred-fold at least. It is no exaggeration to say that there are likely 10,000 people in this world whose lives were directly blessed by the touch of my mother. Among whom, I am chief.
I can only thank the Great Gardener for the blossoms, the fruit, the strong arms, and the sturdy trunk of this tree, so short a time among us, so steady in taking up nutrients, breathing in the life-giving breezes, drinking in the rain, basking in the sun. God make me half that beautiful a tree! (Did I tell her that enough?)
Rest in the arms of God, Mommy. I miss you so much!
I can't really believe these posts are coming up right when they are. I wrote and numbered these last year, and this year am simply taking them in the order they come and pondering them, then writing devotionals about them. "In order to get fruit, flowers have to give their lives." Who in the blazes thought of this piece of wisdom?!
That was me, I guess. Last year, when both my husband and my mother were still alive. I watched the petals fall, as they have fallen in this past week from my old June apple tree, papering the garden underneath with snowy fragrance, and I mused, "Hmmm, we talk about the flowers that never fade, but in fact, if the petals didn't fall, there would never be apples."
I thought there was a good metaphor for life in there. The things you love so much in your life fall away, and you grieve them, but maybe there will later be fruit, even from that loss.
Yada yada.
It's so easy to write about. . . when it's not happening. It's even possible to taste and share and rejoice (bittersweetly) in the growth of compassion and generosity that you discover when, for instance, a much-beloved husband is finally set free from a long, torturous illness. But when you have just begun to rise again from that long draining and exhaustion, and then you lose a vital mother who came from a long line of people who lived 90 years and more and was in no way ready to go. . . what fruit could be worth that? It's also possible to have blossoms fall before they are mature, and produce no fruit at all.
Then again. . .It's not true that she was in no way ready to die. In the only way that matters, she was always ready to die. That is, she was in the path and never left it and never turned back and never gave up. She has arrived at the Center of Centers. And she certainly produced fruit, a hundred-fold at least. It is no exaggeration to say that there are likely 10,000 people in this world whose lives were directly blessed by the touch of my mother. Among whom, I am chief.
I can only thank the Great Gardener for the blossoms, the fruit, the strong arms, and the sturdy trunk of this tree, so short a time among us, so steady in taking up nutrients, breathing in the life-giving breezes, drinking in the rain, basking in the sun. God make me half that beautiful a tree! (Did I tell her that enough?)
Rest in the arms of God, Mommy. I miss you so much!
40 Ways My Labyrinth is Like My Life--#35
35. The roses aren't always in bloom. . .
It's all very well for people to admonish you to stop and smell the roses, but until about a century ago, roses bloomed once, for perhaps two weeks, in mid-spring. That's why they came to be synonymous with evanescent youth and beauty. Maybe it's symptomatic of our youth-chasing culture that in the 19th century breeders began working on those few roses which re-bloomed briefly in fall, and have eventually created roses that now bloom all summer.
Still, even those roses aren't always in bloom. So even though there's time to stop and smell the roses when you walk the labyrinth, it can't always be done. You might have to find something else to "be present to" and appreciate.
Sometimes that's hard.
Other times it's nearly impossible.
Two days ago, I learned that my beloved, young, healthy, strong mother had been found dead in her home. The screaming hysterics didn't last, though I don't imagine I'm through with them. I'm in that numb zone familiar to those who are familiar with grief--the zone in which you make and receive about 500 frantic phone calls, talk fairly reasonably to funeral directors and pastors, just as if you really know what you're doing or saying, hunt down plane tickets and fill suitcases, and crowd together with other suffering family members and then find yourself laughing but avoiding crying.
Don't worry, the crying will be back soon enough. My mother is dead!! How can the world possibly go on without Mother in it?! The idea is incomprehensible, terrifying, obscene!
But I'm not the only one familiar with grief. Neither are you. Jesus is "the man of sorrows and acquainted with grief" Isa 53:3. He has walked this labyrinth before me, and walks it beside me and my family, and beside you, too.
And the roses will bloom again.
This I know.
It's all very well for people to admonish you to stop and smell the roses, but until about a century ago, roses bloomed once, for perhaps two weeks, in mid-spring. That's why they came to be synonymous with evanescent youth and beauty. Maybe it's symptomatic of our youth-chasing culture that in the 19th century breeders began working on those few roses which re-bloomed briefly in fall, and have eventually created roses that now bloom all summer.
Still, even those roses aren't always in bloom. So even though there's time to stop and smell the roses when you walk the labyrinth, it can't always be done. You might have to find something else to "be present to" and appreciate.
Sometimes that's hard.
Other times it's nearly impossible.
Two days ago, I learned that my beloved, young, healthy, strong mother had been found dead in her home. The screaming hysterics didn't last, though I don't imagine I'm through with them. I'm in that numb zone familiar to those who are familiar with grief--the zone in which you make and receive about 500 frantic phone calls, talk fairly reasonably to funeral directors and pastors, just as if you really know what you're doing or saying, hunt down plane tickets and fill suitcases, and crowd together with other suffering family members and then find yourself laughing but avoiding crying.
Don't worry, the crying will be back soon enough. My mother is dead!! How can the world possibly go on without Mother in it?! The idea is incomprehensible, terrifying, obscene!
But I'm not the only one familiar with grief. Neither are you. Jesus is "the man of sorrows and acquainted with grief" Isa 53:3. He has walked this labyrinth before me, and walks it beside me and my family, and beside you, too.
And the roses will bloom again.
This I know.
Monday, April 2, 2012
40 Ways My Labyrinth is Like My Life--#34
34. There's always time to stop and smell the roses.
Walking a labyrinth must never become jogging a labyrinth, or running a labyrinth. It's a slow process; it's meant to be. You move along quietly, putting one foot in front of the other, minding the path and the turns, (especially if maintenance has been neglected). It's easy to get so caught up in an introspective state that you don't even notice your surroundings at all.
Sometimes that can be a good thing. There may be some essential inward work going on which requires all your attention. The labyrinth and its paths may be only a sort of ordering tool--something to keep you moving but dictate those movements so you don't have to think about them, let alone make decisions. There is nothing to distract you from what God is doing inside you.
It's also possible to have the opposite experience--to look around, enjoy the sights and smells, and turn the whole journey into a sightseeing trip while no interior work at all gets done. Sometimes, this can be a good thing, too. I've noticed that it's the way children always walk the labyrinths. We don't need to forever have our noses buried in our belly buttons. It can be a prayer in itself, just walking along, joyfully taking in the sky, the breezes, the sights of grass or blossom or leaf, the progress of fruits.
It's not such a good thing if it makes you lose the path entirely. Still, as long as you're inside the labyrinth, you're never too far from the path, and will be able to find it again, though figuring out the direction you were going might take a bit longer. It's always a tricky operation, guiding children in the right path without stifling their creative little souls (God made them that way), encouraging them to explore without trampling the young blueberries and to try fruit without gashing themselves on thorns, and teaching them, not just to stay on the path, but to know it well enough that they'll be able to stay on it by themselves when you are no longer at hand to guide them.
Having them around will remind you that there is always time to stop and smell the roses. Even in the midst of whatever inner crisis you are undergoing, looking up and discovering a rosebud or a butterfly or a little, hard, green grape beginning to fatten will give your soul relief and remind you that God is only stirring around in your insides for the purposes of creation and re-creation. Conversely, when you are wandering happily along noticing all the blossoms and grass and breezes, the discovery that the raspberries are reaching out long, thorny arms to snag you again will remind you that there is also work to be done, that even when life is a bowl of cherries, somebody has to plant, tend, and harvest those cherries, and each one has another seed of life inside it.
Walking a labyrinth must never become jogging a labyrinth, or running a labyrinth. It's a slow process; it's meant to be. You move along quietly, putting one foot in front of the other, minding the path and the turns, (especially if maintenance has been neglected). It's easy to get so caught up in an introspective state that you don't even notice your surroundings at all.
Sometimes that can be a good thing. There may be some essential inward work going on which requires all your attention. The labyrinth and its paths may be only a sort of ordering tool--something to keep you moving but dictate those movements so you don't have to think about them, let alone make decisions. There is nothing to distract you from what God is doing inside you.
It's also possible to have the opposite experience--to look around, enjoy the sights and smells, and turn the whole journey into a sightseeing trip while no interior work at all gets done. Sometimes, this can be a good thing, too. I've noticed that it's the way children always walk the labyrinths. We don't need to forever have our noses buried in our belly buttons. It can be a prayer in itself, just walking along, joyfully taking in the sky, the breezes, the sights of grass or blossom or leaf, the progress of fruits.
It's not such a good thing if it makes you lose the path entirely. Still, as long as you're inside the labyrinth, you're never too far from the path, and will be able to find it again, though figuring out the direction you were going might take a bit longer. It's always a tricky operation, guiding children in the right path without stifling their creative little souls (God made them that way), encouraging them to explore without trampling the young blueberries and to try fruit without gashing themselves on thorns, and teaching them, not just to stay on the path, but to know it well enough that they'll be able to stay on it by themselves when you are no longer at hand to guide them.
Having them around will remind you that there is always time to stop and smell the roses. Even in the midst of whatever inner crisis you are undergoing, looking up and discovering a rosebud or a butterfly or a little, hard, green grape beginning to fatten will give your soul relief and remind you that God is only stirring around in your insides for the purposes of creation and re-creation. Conversely, when you are wandering happily along noticing all the blossoms and grass and breezes, the discovery that the raspberries are reaching out long, thorny arms to snag you again will remind you that there is also work to be done, that even when life is a bowl of cherries, somebody has to plant, tend, and harvest those cherries, and each one has another seed of life inside it.
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