Daffodil Mornings and Full Moon Evenings

 

"Our poor daffodils! They are blooming just when it is going to get cold again!", Nancy said yesterday morning. Then, as if to underscore her concern as we drove home from watching a volleyball game last evening, we observed the rising full moon in the clearing air after another weather front had passed through. It is lining up to be a frigid night.

How do daffodils, crocuses, tulips and such do it? After waiting patiently all summer long, then overwintering under the frozen earth, they know just when to emerge and begin to stun us all with their beauty - even when the conditions are not the most ideal. The perennial nature of creation's cycle happens year-in and year-out, much as the perpetual phases of the moon, whether we are ready to receive or acknowledge the gift or not. God's creative imagination will not be thwarted or passed over, all happens as it should, even despite the threatening cold of the day or abject disregard of human beings along the way.
That is something with which I struggle on a constant basis: Trusting God and God's creative imagination. Yet, the older I become the more God makes it clearer to me, my control over the direction of my life is only in my mind. I would be far better off to relax, listen to God's Voice, take God's hand, savor the moments, enjoy the daffodils and receive the goodness of a fresh late Winter morning, rather than lose sleep over the plight of the daffodils.
Truth be told, the daffodils, crocuses and tulips are the lucky ones. They do what they are formed and shaped to do without a lot of regard for others around them. You and I, on the other hand, are participants in a world which seems, at times, to be unraveling before our very eyes. Between the wars of nations, the wars on local streets, the war of words in government, the war of economics separating the haves from the have-nots, the war of resources which diminishes the capacity of the marginalized among us to have access to the most necessary of everyday needs, the wars of religions and religious institutions, each claiming to have God on their side, and the wars of race, ethnicity, sexuality and gender, is it any wonder humanity is losing its heart in the awkward attempt to find its soul in caring about anything at all?
It is precisely at the point of all those intersecting conflicts and challenges that Jesus invites you, me and everyone to stand with Him. With Him, beside Him, because of Him, but never without Him. Jesus looks at the world as Beloved and gives Himself over to healing the nations, calming the streets, quieting the governments, making equitable the economics, sharing the resources, redefining religions from a basis of faith and, in the waters of Baptism, wiping away the distinctions of race, ethnicity, sexuality and gender. Pouring Himself out for the sake of God's creative imagination, Jesus invites us to take heart and strengthen our soul, not in our own efforts or resolve, but in trusting Him enough to stand with Him, love with Him, show mercy with Him, have grace with Him and care with Him, all at the door of an empty tomb. 
If one Man, poor as Jesus was, can trouble the waters of the world as He did by just standing His ground in faith, imagine what an entire world standing with Him could accomplish.
Are you so certain you are the only one who is correct?
Are you so satisfied that you are the only one with all the answers?
Are you so pleased that you are the only one who holds a monopoly on God's Wisdom?
Look at the daffodils, crocuses and tulips. God's creative imagination is at work in Jesus - and this world's wisdom is foolishness to God. 
Think on that in these days and then, if you dare, ask yourself where your heart, energy, time and spirit are being spent? At the side of Jesus? Or running from Him, that your own will be done?
God knows the difference, that is why the daffodils will be just fine, blooming as they are. Will you?
Daffodil mornings and full moon evenings give us much to mull on in these days.
Something to ponder on the journey.
 

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