Live the Question

I was once a daily reader of scripture, a teacher of scripture. I had perfected judging my love-your-neighbor-as-yourself neighbors, and I proudly checked yes in all of the boxes on the list of "Things a Righteous Person Tries to Do." And then things got complicated, my life which I had quite nicely planned out (thank you very much) was tipped upside-down and I got lost in a place that I was convinced was never supposed to be mine.

While trying to get my bearings, I threw God out of my life. It was definitely a throwing the baby out with the bathwater kind of situation. There was God, sitting not in glory on his throne, but in a cramped tub of bathwater that had turned cold and grey. That tub, drained, dry and empty, became a flimsy altar I reached for as I found myself drowning in my own cold and grey.

As evidence of God's amazing grace, I fell in love with Him again, while scared, angry and far from home. I recognized him in a pastor who saw me through my tears. I saw Him as I sang, with  hands raised to heaven. I heard Him in the songs of praise, in the drumbeats and in the guitar riffs.  I felt Him as I swayed and clapped to the music, to the words, to the Spirit, drowning out the steady, slow hymns of my right-side up life.

Today I curl up on the couch under a quilt, handmade by someone I barely knew, who gave it to me when I was sitting on this same couch recovering from an unexpected and unexplained stroke. (Hey, Universe, healthy, forty-somethings do not have strokes while getting their personal training on at the gym!) The quilt keeps out the morning chill as I read and re-read a verse of scripture. I'm not a daily reader anymore but when I choose to read, the words and their images rest upon my soul.

Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. James 4:14

My thoughts start to weave the words through the fabric of the Buddhist teachings of impermanence, attachment and non-self that also speak so much truth to my heart, but my finger lingers under the question. For what is your life? The former teacher of scripture in me suggests that I answer the question in the context of the words that precede and follow it. For what is your life? It is unpredictable and brief, surprising and fleeting. But my soul hears something different in the question, perhaps a consequence of having learned how to live upside-down, no longer righteous, no longer a judge.

The words turn and tumble in my mind and "for what is your life" becomes "what is your life for". I listen to the question as it repeats itself. What is my life for? What would the God I love have me do?

At some point this morning, I will leave the warmth of this gifted-quilt to try to live the question.

Waiting

I recently finished a book which used gardens as a powerful analogy. As someone without a green-thumb, I struggle with anything that involves plants, cultivation, or even recognizing the wild beauty of all things growing – whether literal or symbolic. My house is currently plant less, unless you count some of the scary stuff growing in the back of the refrigerator.
 

In spite of my inability to grow anything but three lovely daughters, I have always been intrigued by those who have learned and practice the art of gardening. Growing up in a rural area meant spending time amidst other people's lovingly tended gardens, yards that looked like they could have been on the cover of Better Homes & Gardens and vast farmer’s fields. I actually spent my first year of marriage living in a house surrounded by alfalfa fields. The smell of fresh cut alfalfa still brings back not only miserable allergies but also sweet memories of being newly married. 

The anonymous author of Ecclesiastes in the Old Testament reminds us that for everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven, including a time to plant and a time to harvest. In spite of the cold weather and the winter season I find myself in, this concept of planting and harvesting has been on my mind lately. I recently sat in a waiting room and watched a woman reading a seed catalog the same way I read a captivating book – dog earing pages, making notes and generally becoming absorbed in its pages. I wish now I had asked her about her plans and plants.

As a child, I had Sunday school teachers who used to remind me that you reap what you sow, you can’t plant corn and expect to harvest tomatoes. It makes perfect sense and yet I currently find myself harvesting things that I never intentionally planted. I wish I could spin a beautiful garden-related analogy to help explain. But the truth is that over a long period of time, I have planted seeds that in spite of a lack of tending and years alternating between flood and drought, are now coming to fruition. The fruit is bitter and poisonous, not sweet and life-giving.

What does one do with a garden filled with bitterness and poison?

Perhaps some of the time-honored approaches like weeding, mulching and applying herbicides will find application in my life, for I’m committed to making the soil amenable to beautiful and life sustaining harvests. There is however a more urgent step that must be taken. I have a responsibility to care for those who have unwittingly partaken of my fruit. Unfortunately it isn’t as easy as finding an antidote or medication. They have vomited onto my heart. There has been a purging, but they will not quickly forget the acrid and caustic taste in their mouths. I will care for them in the best ways I am able. I will plant and tend new seeds and then I will wait.

 

Waiting will be the hardest part.