Lotus Flowers

TIMES OF UPHEAVAL

In recent days, my life has had its share of upheaval. For one thing, I totaled my car when the pickup in front of me stopped short after going through an intersection. Then, following a bout of pneumonia and bronchitis and a sinus infection (all at the same time), I had to step away from my job. Not only were my lungs aching and my breathing difficult, but even more, my dream for ministry was suffocating. I knew if I stayed any longer I would lose my voice and my vision. Time to reclaim my purpose and passion for life! 

TRANSITION

But transitions aren’t always easy.  The speed bumps of life force you to slow down and create a necessary pause for reflection. It’s a time to strengthen the inner self and stand a little taller on conviction.  Maybe it’s time to return to the basics. Who are you and what did God create you to do? Stop striving to make it work and let God’s designs unfold.

SOMETIMES BENEATH THE PAVEMENT

It was a surprise when I came out of the x-ray lab at a medical facility the other day and started walking back to my car.  My mind was already on the next appointment, when I noticed an older woman with a straw hat crouching in a grassy area. She was holding a large camera with a zoom lens and was captivated by something beneath the level of the pavement. I was drawn to her.

Approaching the area, I saw the object of her gaze. A lovely floating garden of lotus flowers filled the basin right in the center of the parking lot. It was below the level of the pavement and I had driven right by without seeing it.

Wow! The blooms and the leaves of these Asian plants were enormous, fanning out like elephant ears. I crept down the sides of juniper brush, pulled out my phone camera and started snapping up a few shots, and then we started talking.

Liz had been informed by an email from her photography club about these blooms and drove an hour to shoot them. In her late 70’s, she is retired from writing school books and loves photography. As we chatted further, I learned that she is also fighting cancer. She picked her steps carefully and said her balance has been off since the last surgery.

We talked about the things in life that are hard to recover from, and I alluded to the losses in my own life, of losing parents and my husband of 31 years, and then I spoke of God.

“I’m Jewish,” she said, and started talking about an old book, When Bad Things Happen to Good People, and what she learned from it. (For a second, I flashed back to my husband who said that in 1973, and three months later he believed the Jewish Savior.)  “Oh yes,” I said, “Rabbi Kushner, right?” She was amazed I knew of it.

CHANGE FOCUS

She said she had been challenged by a support group to make sure that her first and last thoughts of every day be filled with gratitude. At first she said it was hard to do, but over time, this has become a wonderful and life-changing habit. It’s a good one to have and operates in our lives the same way prayer does, changing us from within. 

Then I mentioned a book that impacted me when I was studying motivational behavior. I first came across Frankl’s Search for Significance about 40 years ago when I was in training and never forgot his descriptions of living in the prison camps of WWII. We talked about life's challenges and the things you learn through trial and loss.

FIND NEW PERSPECTIVE

We kept moving around to change perspective and capture the shots that moved us. “Look at the little pools of water and how they balance in the center of the leaves,” I snapped more pictures and pondered these little treasures, “like crystal jewels shimmering in the sun! With all the breezes blowing, it’s amazing that they have held onto it since the rain!” These enormous fronds aren't floppy and wavering, but extremely poised, and devoted to their precious trust.

I stood looking at this floating garden, full of my musings about the storms of life and how they shape us. Do we savor and hold onto our blessings from above, or do we let the splashes and ripples of the frogs around us steal our joy?

STAND STRONG AND HOLD ON

Just as Liz has changed her focus to gratitude, she has found a deeper measure of peace even as she faces the uncertainties and surgeries and dabbles at new clinical treatments. She is just like the subjects of her photos! She is standing tall and brave. She is holding onto God’s gifts like crystal jewels. 

SUPPORT EACH OTHER

As our feet crept around the edges of the pond, startled frogs leapt into the water with a splash. I never actually saw one of them, but we knew the whole pond was teeming and rippling with life.  Yet, the broad leaves remained almost motionless as they stood together side by side, propping one another up. One broad leaf would quickly be toppled and tossed around in the wind, but this massive outcropping was tightly meshed together.

In the same way, we need to support each other. There’s great overcoming strength when we stand together and encourage each other. It’s like spiritual scaffolding in the body of Christ.

GOD'S DESIGN

A week after this, I had to go back for some blood work at the same office, and decided to walk down and take a few more pictures before leaving. To my surprise, a car pulled up and Liz stepped out at the exact same time, straw hat and camera in hand for another look! 

Not only did we talk about the obvious and colorful blooms in various stages of development and opening in all their glory, but we looked at all the patterns and the petals. The beautiful centers have a big pod of seeds that resembles a shower spigot in the middle, surrounded by colorful pistils. 

We also observed the broad elephantine leaves. Some, unfurling like new scrolls, and others opened up like large fruit bowls, all the way to the final ruffled edges of the aged.  “Every stage of life in one view,” I said, “but it's so easy to miss it, and drive right by." 

Wow, how many of us rush through life and miss the beauty and the design of God? How many of us never learn to stop and give thanks as we rush to our appointments? 

Our first meeting was a delight, but that second meeting, totally unplanned (by us), provided another great reminder that God is an expert in the design field. He directs our steps! We need to stop and pay attention.

As I drove away, I thought about the unexpected beauty and productivity of that one little spot in the middle of a parking lot. It seemed like something that would be more fitting on a Hawaiian Island or a mountainside somewhere in Japan, not beside Route 9 in Metro West! 

But I’m so grateful for this vision of God’s beauty and balance in a world full of noise and change.

I’m especially grateful for an opportunity to share part of the journey with a beautiful Jewish woman named Liz.

We May Shatter

"We may shine, we may shatter,
We may be picking up the pieces here on after,
We are fragile, we are human,
We are shaped by the light we let through us,
We break fast, cause we are glass.
Cause we are glass."

These words from a recent song by Thompson Square have a haunting reality to them that strikes your soul. Life is fragile. We get broken. Things can change quickly. 

 

I was reminded of this yesterday morning when I glanced out the dining room window and thought I saw a pile of icy snow where I used to have a beautiful patio table. It had shattered into a million tiny clumps in the grass!

 

Apparently the wind had picked up the umbrella and spiked it through the glass table. Geesh. I only had it two weeks! The joy it gave in that brief time offset by sheer reality: things don’t last as long as I’d like them to.

How do you handle adversity or disappointment? How do you react when plans change and things go wrong? Unexpected winds arise. Hopes are dashed. There’s poop on the park bench. This is life and we shouldn’t be surprised. We’re surrounded with such prickly reminders that we are passing through this shadow land like a vapor.

We like being reminded about these things about as much as I’m going to like replacing that glass, but the stalwart James warned about the fleeting aspect of this temporal world. He compared our lives to a puff of smoke that we see for a brief time and then vanish out of sight—not meant to belittle, but a reality check to give us a glimpse of the heavenly perspective.  All this is brief and passing quickly.  Trying to hold onto this life is like holding water in the palm of your hand.

This is a little thing and we all know there are many greater concerns on the planet. I can throw up my hands and rant about how “life sucks” or peel back the curtain and ask, why do I feel this way? When life makes me mad and chafes my comfort zone I prove an inner yearning for something better. Wisdom prods to hope in God’s design like cowboys on a cattle drive.

 
When something breaks like the brakes on my car, I want things that will last! I want to feel safe.
When my boss turns out to be mean and mentally unstable, I want people who are fair and trustworthy and honest! When people disappoint, I want reliability. I want love and devotion reciprocated.  I ache for unconditional forever-kind-of-love, total forgiveness, and lasting peace.

I long for the day there will be no more cancer, addictions, abortion or trafficking. I’m tired of grieving. I crave joy!

Whatever happens, life reveals (often times like reverse photography) what I don’t want in stark relief to what I ultimately hope for, and it all comes down to a giant billboard for everything Jesus offers.

My little list of failures and let downs, broken parts and fragmented lives creates a wonderful abstract for the heaven of my dreams. There, every wrong will be made right. Every wound healed. Every hole filled. Sorrows erased. Tears will be dried.  

 
Father, help us hold lightly to things that don’t matter, like glass that shatters.

Loving God and people are all that matters.