“Every fragile beauty, every perfect forgotten sentence,
you grieve their going away, but that is not how it is.
Where they come from never goes dry.
It is an always flowing spring.”
~ Rumi

Fragility. Lately, I have been thinking a lot about the fragility. It may have started with the daffodils and the tulips. Watching them do the work that must be so difficult…waiting, pushing, reaching, blooming to welcome the springtime. Then there’s the lily-of-the valley in their tiny, whiteness sending the sweetest smell, the first true smell of what will be, into the days of May. And yet, now, for the most part they are all gone. Their fragile beauty is so fleeting. They have been replaced by the brilliant purple and yellow irises who demand our attention with color that dazzles the eye and fills my heart with a reminder of how fragile life is. Each of these blooms have been batted about by the rains that seem to be a daily occurrence and the accompanying winds. And in a few short days, these harbingers of the season will also be gone. Their delicate petals will fade and fall away. It seems a terribly fragile existence.

This rumination on fragility may have started with the flowers. Yet it didn’t take long before the thoughts of how easily things can be broken, can be lost, moved quickly to the human ones we all know and those we hear about across our world. It seems there are so many fragile places, so many broken people that are calling out for hope and compassion, near and far. It is difficult not to become despairing or, worse, retreat to a place of choosing not to see, not wanting to be confronted by it all. The wars that rage across the world, the children wounded, killed, displaced. The abuse of power by the few aimed at the weaker tears at everything it means to be human. How to hold it all?

Of course, even those of us who do not live in war zones also know this fragile nature that weaves our living together. An illness arrives. An accident happens. A dream is shattered. A mistake is made. A senseless act is committed that alters everything. Our lives can change, as they say, on a dime, with no warning, placing the tragedy of surprise in our lap. We would do well to walk around with the message:” Fragile. Handle with Care.” emblazoned on our foreheads.

Fragility is part and parcel of us all. In the face of this, we would do well to savor each moment, each breath, each encounter with another, each glimpse of the glory of Creation that is offered every day. In saying this I am preaching a sermon to myself.  With such knowledge, I want to be comforted by the words of the 13th century poet, Rumi. Perhaps his own life was being visited by turmoil when he wrote: “Every fragile beauty, every perfect forgotten sentence, you grieve their going away, but that is not how it is. Where they come from never goes dry. It is an always flowing spring.” Perhaps Rumi was also preaching a sermon to himself.

In the days ahead, I want to hold onto his words with all my might and do this until I believe it down to my core. Fragile beauty, yes. Grief that comes with loss and brokenness, yes. Yet a heart-deep knowing that there is a river that runs below and within it all that never goes dry and offers an ever-flowing stream of the hope that is spring. 

May it be so.