“Lest he should lose command over the tales he loved, he
used to repeat them aloud when he thought no one was near, using the
gesticulations and the emphasis…..as if he were once again the center of a
fireside story-telling.” ~Alwin and Brinley Rees

 Stories. We are all made of stories. The stories of our
families. The stories of our nation. The stories of our ancestry. The stories
of the time in which we were born, our generational story. We are made of the
stories we create about who we want to be and those that point to the reality
of who we really are. There are stories in the freckles that powder our noses
and the scares we carry on our knees. The clothing we dress in each morning
carries the story of who we wish to portray to the world. Our stories are full
of hope and failure, of ‘what ifs?’ and ‘why nots?’ And most stories are
seasoned with a host of ‘maybes’.

 This Sunday if you happen into most Christian churches you
will hear one of the primary stories of the tradition: the story of the
prodigal son. I love this Sunday and hearing this story once again. I believe
that it holds so much of what it means to understand ourselves as a child of
God that, if we read this same scripture for a year of Sundays, we wouldn’t
mine all it has to offer us. This story of the young man who flees his boring,
regular old home for a life he believes to be better only to learn that,
perhaps, the grass is not always greener, is our story. At some point or
another of any given life, we have all been a prodigal.

 But the story is also about the faithful parent, the
forgiving father who rejoices at his child’s return. This parent who
undoubtedly spent many a waking hour, looking out the window, asking where he
went wrong, hoping and praying for the child’s return is also a story most
parents can relate to in some way. The connection of parent and child is one
that is complicated and full of leavings and returnings.

 And then there is the character of the older child, the one
who stayed at home to ‘do the right thing’ by his family. He was an obedient
child, a cooperative child, the loyal child, the one who didn’t give his
parents any trouble. One can only imagine the horror and the devastation of
this ‘good’ child when his wild younger brother returns and the faithful parent
throws a party in his honor. Or maybe you can imagine. Maybe you have lived it.

 Reading this story once again in preparation for Sunday, I
am reminded of all the stories that shape us. I am reminded of how important it
is to hear and to tell them over and over again. With each telling, if we are
lucky, we hear them in new ways. As we have changed with each passing day…..which
we do…..we are given the gift to experience the familiar in new ways. And so it
goes with each retelling.

 What stories have shaped you? What stories do you need to
hear once again because it is the right time? What stories are planted deep
within you that call to you asking to be told to a whole new generation, in a
whole new time?

 Tell me a story.

"We have endured
The Order of Winter
The Hunger
The Winds
The Pain of Sickness
And lived on…..
Once again we shall
See the Snow melt
Taste the Flowering Sap
Touch the Budding Seeds
Smell the Whitening Flowers
Know the Renewal of Life."
(found beside a Boreal Forest display at the Museum of Man and Nature, Winnipeg, Manitoba.)
 

It is a time of revelation in Minnesota. As the sun shines and the temperatures warm, the multiple inches of snow has been melting slowly into the thawing ground. We are glad for this slow melt as it lessens the chance of spring floods in those areas prone to rising waters. But as the snow melts the great reveal begins.

 This revealing consists of all those things captured and held suspended in the layers of snow and ice over the winter months. Last week on my walks I saw many interesting items that are emerging from the snow. Aluminum cans of various brands and in a multiplicity of forms: flattened, ripped in jagged shreds, full and empty. Wrappers of all kinds: candy, gum, potato chip bags, a sliver of gummy bear bag, many tossed plastic bags from a variety of chain stores. Items once found in the mouth: gum, chewed and now thawing to present a walking hazard, cigarettes, some still intact as if the sign of a kicking the habit moment, others fully smoked down to the filter. Clothing: a pair of jeans, a stray tennis shoe, a once white t-shirt now mutilated by car tires, a blue t-shirt flat as a pancake but in good condition. A fully preserved pigeon, feathers still glittering oil slick colors, lying within the thawing snowbank as if it had made its nest there and was only sleeping. Not far from the pigeon, a pink pacifier, lost to its no-doubt anxious owner.

These treasures I noticed caused me to wonder about what else might be revealed as these days of winter melt into the new birth of spring. What are the things in my life that have been hidden beneath the ice and snow of this winter? What parts of my living have been frozen in time waiting to be picked up and tossed as the waste it now is? Or what is waiting to be found, washed, cared for and nurtured back to life? Like the pink pacifier owner, what have I,perhaps, outgrown? If we are awake and aware,these revelations of melting can bring great change, new life.

The slow melt will continue over the next several days. We've even been promised an early rain which will begin the clean up toward spring's greening. But before we get to that point, perhaps it is wise to take stock of what is being revealed. With eyes wide open our spring might take on a whole new dimension that could make all the difference in our lives and in the life of the world. 

As I understand the season of Lent, that is really the point.

"Every long journey is made in small steps,
Is made of courage, the feeling you get
When you know it's been waiting, been waiting for you.
The journey's the only thing you want to do……..

~Ann Reed

I've been singing these words over and over in my head today. I know that it is partially because I am anticipating Ann Reed's concert at church tomorrow night.We are looking forward to her 'Songs of Hope' concert, an opportunity to bathe in words and music that will lift us above whatever is dragging us down.  I am singing them also, I think, because I am very aware of this journeying time we are in. The journey of winter to spring. The journey of Lent to Easter. The journey of darkness to light. So many journeys…..

Of course, we are all on journeys all the time. The journey of our day, our year, our life. We just rarely think of our living in quite this way. But when we really allow ourselves to be in the 'journeying mind' each day can be an adventure, a series of steps toward something more. Many people I know are on significant life journeys.They are dealing with illness, death, losses of many kinds, journeys they never intended to take. But life showed up and off they went, down the road. Still others are waiting for new babies, graduations, weddings, the joy and promise of birth. Perhaps more joyful journeys but filled with great change nonetheless. 

This journey becomes even a greater experience when we are awake and aware of those who travel by our side. Ann Reed's lyrics continue:" And we cannot know what you go through or see through your eyes but we will surround you with pride undisguised. In any direction, whatever you view,you're taking our love there with you."

Isn't that the blessing we all seek? To be understood for our unique experience and affirmed in it. No one can really know what our journey feels like, how the experience is for us. It is a great gift to be surrounded by people who are filled with pride at our triumphs and with compassion at our failures. It is a great gift to travel in the love of others.

Who are you surrounding with love this day? Perhaps it is a family member, a close friend or co-worker. But maybe, just maybe, it might be the overworked sales clerk, the harried teacher at your child's school, the bus driver. What might the world be like if we surrounded, not only those close to us, but those we simply encounter with the same compassion and love ? Like Tinkerbell sprinkling fairy dust, we have the opportunity to spread well wishes on the path of every fellow traveler we meet. I'd like that, wouldn't you? 

"Maintaining a complicated life is…..one of the best ways we have to avoid looking at some of the larger questions. ~Elaine St. James, from Living the Simple Life

Last week I was about to throw away a newsletter I'd received when I saw this quote at the bottom of the page. I had to smile. I thought I could get away with pitching this piece of paper but it wasn't finished with me yet. There was a little message meant just for me and it was going to find its way to me no matter what. I thought of all the ways I perpetuate the complicated life. Too busy for this or that. Saying yes to too many obligations. Allowing myself to be consumed by the seemingly urgent while ignoring what is truly important. It is a common dis-ease of our 21st century life. 

Creating a complicated life does, indeed, allow us to hedge the larger questions. If my life is too full, too busy, too overbooked, too….you can fill in the blank…..it is very easy to never get to the larger questions of life. It becomes, at least for me, easy to continually tick away at the to-do list than take the time to grapple with the bigger issues that press at my heart, that stir my soul.  It is also easier to continue to put off till tomorrow, when things are less complicated, those questions that really are calling to me at a deeper level, those experiences that bring me pleasure, fulfill me. Living the complicated life is, after all, exhausting. 

What is complicating your day? What is complicating your life? Are there dreams and goals you have been putting off until the time when life is less complicated? Sometimes we have no control over the complications that come our way. They simply need to be dealt with in the here and now.For those times we offer our prayers. But other times we create complications to keep us from taking the risk, seeing the bigger picture, taking stock, asking the hard questions. It is important to recognize the difference in these complications of life.

Nicola Slee wrote this grace for distracted eaters: "Today my food has no flavor. I do not notice what the weather is doing. I eat distractedly, consumed by my own absorptions. Still I make this prayer and my lips utter Thanks." Whether we describe our living as complicated or distracted, it is my belief that we all want to taste the glory that is our food. We all want to look outside our windows and notice the blazing sun and the melting icicles. We all want to arrive at the end of another day of life, which is pure gift, knowing that our mouths can form a 'thanks'. 

And so, perhaps it is a good idea to clear out a little space where complications cannot live. Five seconds, five minutes, five hours, five days to rest in the larger questions. Whatever we can muster that will get us to that place called gratitude. I have to believe it will make a difference, not only to us, but to our world.

Yesterday morning I was making my way to the office along my usual route. I was taking in the piles of dirty snow and general grayness of day's beginning. I was listening to my usual radio station which was delivering its normal banter. I was thinking of the details of the day ahead with a certain 'ho-hum' nature. It was Monday after all and I knew what every Monday holds, which meetings will happen when, the cleanup of the aftermath of any given Sunday. Plainly put, it was shaping up to be a regular, normal, nothing-out-of-the-ordinary Monday.

And then, boom, my eyes beheld a giant lemon! Sitting in the driveway of a house I pass numerous times during any given week, there sat a giant lemon shaped structure. It was the size of a small camper or, dare I say it, ice fishing house! It was shiny and looked new. It sat on a nice green platform as if this giant lemon had fallen from an even more enormous lemon tree onto a bed of newly cut grass. The brilliant yellow of the lemon was such a shock to my eyes,now so accustomed to the blur of winter white, that I shook my head to see if I was hallucinating. But no, there is was a giant lemon showing itself on the first day of March. It seemed to say:"Look out! Summer is on its way!" On further inspection I saw a window in the lemon, obviously an entrance for people to order lemonade and an exit for the sweet, sugary drink of warm days. 

I laughed out loud. This unexpected sight set the tone for my day. It helped to remind me that there are surprises waiting to delight us, to jar us out of the routine we cling to. These surprises can bring us the gift of seeing what has been too familiar, boring even, in new and exciting ways. It is the basis of all creativity to see the world in this way. It is, I like to believe, the way children still walk in the world. It is a practice most adults need to recapture to help them see the world that has become too static in new ways. Seeing the giant lemon certainly did that to my usual Monday.

What surprises have you seen lately? What experiences have jarred you out of the routine of a typical winter, a regular work day? We cannot manufacture surprises and the gifts they bring. But we can all walk into each day with eyes wide open to what the world might bring. The giant lemon helped me to be open to other little touches that made my Monday, the first day of March, a day like no other. It was a day that held lots of laughter with my co-workers, big belly laughs. It also held a few tears as I met with someone who had lost a loved one, as we planned to keep their memory. As I read a wonderful book about feeding people and the true meaning of communion, I noticed that some refraction of light had caused a rainbow to form on the surface of my creamed tea. It was so beautiful and then I drank from my tea cup. I like to think that rainbow is now inside of me. I came home to find the amaryllis that is reaching toward its fullness even taller than yesterday. So many things to notice on any given day. 

And to think it all started with a giant lemon……..It was just what I needed.

"Mystery is at the heart of creativity. That, and surprise."~Julia Cameron