Consider the birds of the air

Today I had to take my car to get an assortment of work done on it and since I had to leave it overnight I decided to just walk home from the shop. I had many things to sort out, so many questions and so many frustrations. The first two thirds of the way back I struggled and wrestled and poured my heart out to God: my consternation over not understanding where I'm at or where I'm headed, the stream of seemingly endless possibilities barraging at me from all sides to the point of utter bewilderment.

Whatever happened to me during college, one aspect of it could be described as putting me in a box with a whole bunch of other random objects, shaking it all up and then tossing everything back out hoping I'd land on my feet. A huge part of me is introspective. I feast on my surroundings, take them in and then mull over them for what seems like centuries before coming to an understanding of them by a rather circuitous route. Even so, I guess I simply haven't sufficiently processed all that has happened in me and around me over the past 5 years. And so I marched, like a soldier in formation, overworking my already tired self with fierce mental exercises that tried to map out the future for me then and there. I took out the old, full list of careers and paths I've thought of pursuing at one point or another. Each one was thrown onto the drawing board for critique and red ink, and not a one stood out as a winner. Somehow I managed to cross streets and dodge cars while deep in thought.

Finally exhausted and nearly in tears I stopped for a moment to touch a branch of a weeping Alaskan cedar (yes I looked it up later). The long, drooping boughs looked soft and gentle, yet as I ran my finger over the branch I felt the gentle pricks of the little needles. I stayed, arrested in that spot and breathed in the air. It was cool and damp, filled with the smell of spring rain, fresh grass and new growth. I started thinking about birds and flowers, and how they have no cares or worries. They do not sow nor reap, yet they are provided for abundantly. I decided to stop calculating feverishly and soak in God's beauty. In a little patch of forest adjacent to the Holiday Inn parking lot right off Prices Fork I stood and looked up at the tall, quiet trees. They were housing a scampering squirrel and a handful of birds. I watched a blue jay with a scrap of white fabric in her beak as she tried to fray and tear it on the branch beneath her. The squirrel caught my eye with his frenzy of movement and I realized he was trying to dry himself out after the rain! After rubbing himself down all over with his tail just like a bath towel, he would wring it out like a propeller behind him to dry it out and start over again. The most curious thing!

In that small haven of peace I thought of the Secret Garden and renewed my desire to one day have my own quiet retreat, decked out in the splendor of creation. Wonderful, isn't it, that God is our place of refreshment whenever we need it, all day long? I wondered about my life and how it could be akin to a garden and a quote from Dag Hammarskjöld came to mind (second Secretary General of the United Nations). "He who wants to keep his garden tidy does not reserve a plot for weeds." I mused on this and it occurred to me that maybe I've been doing too much of this. In my attempts to keep myself unsullied from the things of this world, perhaps I have poured too much pesticide and weedkiller all over my garden so that not even flowers can grow. I am nearly too afraid to be in this world, even though all the while I know I am not of it. By no means am I to invite fleshly things to take root in my garden, but I must keep the soil healthy, nuture and tend the good things so that they may grow strong and beautiful. I feel as if I have uprooted all my roses with the thistles and am facing a now desolate sight.

Jesus said, "My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful."

My heart has been so very, very troubled. In this, one more thing, my faith seems to be failing. However, these past couple of days I have been reading through Deuteronomy. God repeatedly tells Israel that he will go before them, leading them into the land that he has promised them, a land flowing with milk and honey. I think I am ready to go in and possess my portion of the inheritance.

Lord, give me eyes to see across the Jordan, into the land that you have given me.