Treasure

A family walk on a warm February day...
Hunting for treasure, hiding in camouflage...
And one day, hopefully, they will know that the real treasure found on that day was each other...
The gift of shared memories and God-painted canvas forever etched...
And knowing that despite the daily grind of life...bickerings..and working things out...
they had what was most important.

Can you find Sam?
He bought a ghillie suit with his birthday money...

The prize.....

Full Of Grace

"Hail, Mary, full of grace!".....

And she was and is full of grace, because Mary's whole life was an affirmation of God- who he is and what he was doing in her life. Her very being, her soul, "proclaim(ed) the greatness of the Lord." (Luke 1:46)

When we strive to be God-filled rather than self-filled we, like Mary,  affirm the 'greatness' of God and allow his grace into our lives.

I recently read a passage written by Father Joseph Payne, which expresses this thought so clearly:

We are good and lovely and dedicated because God has loved us and we have had the grace to respond to that love. We spend our lives responding to love, living "in answer" to a greater love that calls to us.

Everything, then, is grace. Everything is a gift. To the extent that we recognize and celebrate God's gracious love will we be able to respond to God's call  and to be gracious both to ourselves and to our neighbors, the other friends of Jesus.

When we fail to celebrate grace and graciousness, we become tough. The pressures of life make us tough with ourselves, and we become tough with each other. Look around you at those who are hard on other people and you will find those who are hard on other people are hard on themselves. When we fail to celebrate grace and graciousness, we become distant- distant from ourselves , distant from God and distant from our neighbor. Look around you at those who are aloof and you will find people who are in some real way aloof from themselves.

In the incarnation, the mystery of God's love became flesh. That love became tangible and visible and believable in Jesus, who came to put an end to all distance.We who believe in Jesus, then, must put an end to all distance. We want to be present the way Jesus was, attuned to people as he was, and fully present to God after his example. We want to stop 'postponing our presence,' stop delaying being fully there with God, with self, with neighbor.

...Jesus did not live a 'muffled' presence-the car muffler silences the sound of its exhaust system. Jesus did not live a 'muted' presence-the mute softens the brilliance of the trumpet. We who follow Jesus dare not live the message of love in muffled and muted fashion. If Jesus was really present, we who believe in Jesus must be really present, or the gospel will be sung by us only in hushed tones.

We must not live in "hushed tones," then.  We must live boldly in the fullness and truth of God's magnificence, proclaiming his love and living in the light of his beautiful grace.

Harvest

Bowed heads yield to the burden of time. Earth, her bowels depleted, heaves in surrender to death.

The naked landscape probes the recesses of my soul. I lie on the ground, furled in the solitude of a barren womb and am stilled by the mystery.

The mystery, the amazement, the miracle. 
The miracle.
And isn't that always the miracle? That sterility swells with vitality? That I can lie in wonder on a cold ground, looking up at crumpled ashen flowers and know that they promise life?

Each one of these Sunflower seeds will grow into  a vibrant yellow flower next Summer. Every head is bulging with seeds, crammed with life.

And that is the greatest mystery. If God can take a seed from a plant and work this miracle, how much more can He do with an eternal soul? How can we behold such grandeur and not know that we are destined for greatness?

How can we go about our days, taking for granted that day after day, month after month, year after year, the earth will replenish, renew, bear fruit, put forth seed... sustain our very being...yet  forget that God is doing the same for us? Our lives are the seeds in a destitute existence...and God is  anticipating the harvest.

 And the people who will plant seeds, knowing and expecting the harvest to come, refuse to believe that God can work the same miracle in our souls. All creation proclaims who God is and what He does. All creation is the supreme manifesto.

Why thus longing, forever sighing for the far off, unattained and dim, while the beautiful, all around thee lying, offers up its low perpetual hymn?
Wouldst thou listen to its gentle teaching, all thy restless yearnings it would still; Leaf and flower and laden bee are preaching thine own sphere, though humble first to fill.

~Harriet Winslow Sewall

Centerpiece

A few days ago I found this Swallowtail caterpillar on a walk. I placed it in a jar with some parsley and dill, a Swallowtail larva's favorite food.The next day I looked in on my caterpillar and was disappointed to see it curled dead at the bottom of the jar.

"Oh well," I thought. "It must have been too late in the year for this little guy to make it." For some reason, though, I left the caterpillar, lifeless, at the center of the table. Imagine my surprise a few days later to see a perfectly formed chrysalis at the bottom of the jar!

I was so excited, I began shouting to the children, to anyone who could hear, that "The caterpillar isn't dead after all! It formed a chrysalis!!! " Oliver said, "Well, Mom, you must have been expecting something to happen; otherwise, why would you have left a dead caterpillar as the centerpiece of our dining room table?"

Why? Was I hoping? Do I dare to think that I had hope, that I hadn't given up on life?
Why would I leave death to look upon? How could something dry and dead inspire? But that is the mystery for the Christian: death enfolds life. Just when life seems the most bleak, just when you're ready to curl up like that caterpillar at the bottom of the jar...there is victory in the wings.

You may be ready to call it quits. You may be wondering what it's all for. You may not know the reason for even your own existence. But God's plans for you and for your life are as alive as the caterpillar, lying limp and motionless, awaiting the miracle. Sometimes life breathes fullest in a grave of quiet, lungs heaving in solitude. All seems lost, but with each deep and painful breath God  works an amazing transformation that restores life.

Will you let Him do that? Will you have faith? Can you let what seems dead in your life remain the centerpiece, knowing that He is going to work a miracle far surpassing your expectations?

"However, as it is written: No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him'--" (1Corinthians 2:9)

"I alone know the plans I have for you, plans to bring you prosperity and not disaster, plans to bring about the future you hope for. " (Jeremiah 29:11)

Rooted

Roots dig deep and plummet depths of a dry earth. Searching..always searching. Growing and groping their way to that life-sustaining current running through the ground: water. Life. Twisting into the earth, they suck the water like giant straws, carrying the water to the very tops of the tree's branches, reaching to the farthest leaves. No leaf is left dry.

Roots dig deep and clutch earth, their tendrils curling and grasping soil. Spreading, entwining, they brace and bolster a towering tree. That tree will withstand gale force winds, setting her face against the storms, but she will not fall. The roots uphold and strengthen her being. She will still flower, she will still bear fruit. She will thrive, because she is rooted. Yes, "the root of the righteous will bear fruit." (Pr 12:12)

And what of roots and towering trees?  I ponder as I course familiar paths, stumbling over those very roots that nurture the canopy shielding me from the sun's afternoon heat.

Roots.
Rooted.

Many times when a tree dies it is because there has been damage to the roots. Because the tree is no longer sustained by its life-giving roots, it rots and dies or is the victim of a wind storm. The weak roots are ripped from the earth, and the tree colapses. Dead.

And me. Am I rooted? Are my roots growing in fertile soil, drawing the "living water?"(Jn7:38) Or am I allowing the roots of my being to go unfed, unwatered? Where do I need to dig in my roots?

"Therefore as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, having been firmly rooted and now being built up in Him and established in your faith, just as you were instructed, and overflowing with gratitude. " (Col. 2:6-7)
     

How can I expect to flourish if my roots, my being is not entrenched in the life-giver, the one who sustains? 

I must be "rooted and grounded in love," so that I "may have strength to comprehend with all the holy ones what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that (I) may be filled with the fullness of God." (Eph. 3:17-19)

I must be rooted in Christ so that I can withstand the tempests, the trials, and the temptations of life. They will come. But if my roots are secure in Him, I, like the tree, will not fall. I will flourish.