When the unexpected chance to visit the home place came, I chose to embrace it as a gift and leave worry for another day. I sped along the freeway, leaving the crowds behind and marveling at the sea of golden corn tassels, marveling, too, at myself riding through the familiar beauty with new gratitude born of need and distance. I arrived home long after sunset, and my brother and I walked to the barn yard. We lay in the grass, staring up at a splendor of stars, some near and bright, some a mere suggestion. The barn sheltered our backs. The tall corn formed a wall in front of us. The world seemed at rest at last in a stillness of insect hums and shooting stars.
The few days sped by, blessed with love from my family, including a visit from an uncle and cousin whom I had not seen for a long time. On the morning of my departure, I chose to stop by the little cemetery just outside the village and see my dad's grave. It was a little odd, stepping out of the car into a place of such mixed memories. I've never felt quite sure how to act around a relative's grave--especially a person so interwoven with myself. It would seem proper to think heavenly thoughts, or be angry, or cry and cry like the situation deserves, but in the end you just kind of are, and it just is. Sometimes you get great insights, and sometimes you don't, and sometimes you wonder if you've just been trying too hard to make some sense of the whole experience. I don't think I will ever be fully reconciled to death. And yet, I find a beauty in the cemetery, and a comfort in the view from Dad's grave--the pasture and field and woods, the bird calls and breeze rustling through the corn. Stepping back around the tombstones toward my car, I prayed, Thank You for the peace. The peace surrounded me in the quiet nature noises, wide spaces, and broken heat spell. I even found a measure of it within my heart. 
Back on the oil and chip road, I halted again to photograph chicory and Queen Anne's lace. I snapped several pictures, loving the fragile informality of the blue chicory--an emigrant and escapee from European colonists' gardens long ago. All the way back to my urban apartment, wildflowers lined the roadsides: faded stands of purple cone flowers, mounds of rose-colored crown vetch, lines of chicory, and yellow flowers I couldn't identify. On the slope up to the razor wire and guard house of a prison, Queen Anne's lace flourished like huge snow flakes in the green grass. On that day, the wild flowers were a tangible manifestation of grace--free, beautiful, stretching on and on, like a carpet unrolled in front of me, rejoicings unfurled along my way, and even an unearned love message. Rolling back into the city, I spied starrings of white buttercups between stretches of pavement.Now, surrounded by worries and constant traffic, I must remember the message in the flowers:
“'Therefore I tell you, do not worry
about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will
wear. [ . . . ] See how the flowers of the field grow.
They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell
you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which
is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more
clothe you—you of little faith? So do
not worry, saying, "What shall we eat?" or "What shall we
drink?" or "What shall we wear?" For the pagans run after all these things, and your
heavenly Father knows that you need them. But
seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be
given to you as well. Therefore do not
worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough
trouble of its own,'" (Matthew 6: 25, 28-34 NIV).
"I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living!" (Psalm 27:13).
No comments:
Post a Comment