Do Not Worry

A few weeks ago, I put out a mixture of grass seed and straw and fertilizer, primarily along the strip of my property that borders the alleyway.  That particular strip had been just dirt, stones and a few weeds and so the garbagemen saw no problem with driving their truck over it each week, slowly eroding my already tiny lot.  So, most of the grass seed went there, and it is, somewhat shockingly, thriving considering how little it has to work with.

But I also scattered some seed and straw over a bare patch in the front yard.  Most of the yard is spotty, but this bare patch was quite large, so I thought, let’s give it a go and see what happens.

The good news is the grass that has grown there is lush and beautiful, the type of grass you want to run your fingers through, the type of grass you used to play in when you were a kid, the type of grass that made you unafraid to roll down the hill in it.  This new grass is so new and so amazing looking that the other day when I mowed it for the first time and left wheel marks, I went out right after and fluffed up the grass that had been squashed.  I am babying that baby grass.  I don’t water it with a hose; I use a watering can.  I am gentle.

The bad news about that new grass is that it makes the rest of the yard look horrible in comparison.

The rest of the yard is filled with what I call “spite” grass, that’s grass that grows out of spite and meanness.  It’s moody teenager grass.  It doesn’t want to share space with the rocks and scabby dirt.    It has always been jealous of the greener grass on the other side of the fence.  It is definitely jealous of the new plush patch of grass that has sprung up in the middle of it—the grass that I water and protect with straw and speak kind words of encouragement to.  The spite grass doesn’t want to be in my yard at all, but since it has no choice, it might as well grow—a little.

If you stand in my yard and listen, that’s not the wind you hear, it’s all that spite grass sighing bitterly over its life.

Every day, it seems that God gives me something to do outside in the yard.  It’s a challenge to find something for me to do that won’t leave me bedridden in pain.  But God gives me little things.  Water the grass.  One watering can a day.  Fill it only half full.  Spread it out evenly over the seedlings. 

Tomorrow my task will be to blow the shells, the ghosts of their former selves, that the cicadas have left behind on the back patio.  I wish I could complain about the cicadas—I don’t mind them but my physical therapist is getting married next week and has an outdoor wedding she is terrified will be overcome by cicadas. 

I want to share with her verses from today’s reading in Luke 12:22-24 where Jesus says, “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds!”

I want to tell her not to worry about the cicadas.  God takes care of the birds and, in least in my neighborhood, that means about 10,000 birds have descended upon us to eat the cicadas.  Don’t worry about the cicadas.  Worry about the birds and nasty things they let drop from the sky.

I’m guessing she would find that neither comforting nor amusing, and it’s best not to upset the woman who’s sticking needles in your back.

What I have always found interesting about these verses from Luke is that we, as human beings, are clearly wired to worry because nothing has changed in two thousand years. 

No matter how the day goes, at some point during the day we will find ourselves ruminating on something.  We will find something to puzzle on, something to chew on, worry about, get our stomachs all fluttery.  We will dig canyons of worry-lines across our foreheads.  And honestly, the biggest problem I have is that I worry about everything, equally. 

I have no ability to discern what is important in life—we are told by society that everything is important—everything is breaking news even though it happened yesterday and no one died and everyone is fine. 

I read a meme once that said, “I wish someone would explain to my body that the fight or flight response is only for life-or-death situations.”

And here is Jesus in Luke, speaking to us directly from across the millennia, saying, “Don’t worry about life, what you eat or what you wear—God’s got it.”

And then God will point me to the hedge clippers and say, “That honeysuckle needs to be cut back.”

And I’ll sigh—trying not to sound bitter like that scraggly spite grass out front—but I’ll sigh because I will cut that honeysuckle back like a foot and that will be all I can manage and tomorrow it will have seemingly grown back a foot and then some and now its tendrils are curling around the vinyl siding on the house. 

But when I finish with the honeysuckle, God will say, “How do you feel?  Still worried?”

And I’ll have to think about it.  “Give me a minute,” I’ll say, “I’m sure I can think of something.”

And God will point out back to the weed-like tree that’s three feet tall, and he’ll say, “That died over the winter.”

I will sigh again because I had noticed that it looked dead-ish—it certainly hadn’t sprung to life like the honeysuckle that was now crashing over it like a wave.

God will again point to the dead weed.  “You can probably just break it off.  You won’t even need that saw you bought on Amazon and haven’t used.”

I think this is why we are told to pray without ceasing because God knows if we’re in constant conversation with Him, we won’t have time to worry.  God knows when we are in constant conversation with Him, our faith is enriched.  We are like that new patch of grass in my front yard.  We thrive when we are shown attention and love.  We improve mentally, physically and spiritually.  The more time we spend with God, the more our own spirit grows, the more our souls settle, curling up to God as if we were a child, His child, and He was about to read us the most perfect, breathtaking and wonderful story.

It's our story, He’s reading to us by the way.

In the meantime, I take care of the tiny bit of earth that God has seen fit to name me caretaker of, that means the new grass, but also the weeds and the rocks and, yes, the spite grass.  They need love too.

We all do.

Amen.

Lessons From the Cicada

The other morning, I was out for my walk when I noticed something strange on my neighbor’s chain-link fence.

I’m used to seeing various vines and flowers growing through the fence, but on this particular morning, there was something new.

Dozens of molting cicadas.

The cicadas have been on the news lately because of a certain brood that is hatching this year.  I’m actually used to cicadas, having lived 25 years in Florida.  The hum of the cicada is Florida’s soundtrack, always playing in the background.

Florida cicadas also seem a lot larger than these in Ohio, but I have never seen so many cicadas appearing all at once, and I was entranced by the molting cicadas perched on the fence.

The newly hatched winged cicada was pale, like a ghost, clutching at its former shell.  The cicada was naked and vulnerable and all I could say as I leaned in closer—not too close—was, “You are beautiful in a very gross way.”

When we talk about ourselves, about the various changes we all undergo in our lives, we frequently use the metamorphosis of the butterfly as a metaphor for transformation.  And it’s a very good metaphor, cute little caterpillar devolving into a little cocooned glop of goo before finally emerging this glorious, winged creation.

I mean, who among us can’t identify with the glop of goo stage.

But the cicada, especially these periodical cicadas, deserve so much respect when it comes to transformation.  Because we only see them as nymphs, emerging from the ground and then molting.  What we don’t see is the 13-17 years they have spent underground in darkness before emerging into the light of day.

You have to respect that level of commitment to change.

Change does not happen overnight.

Sometimes change, transformation, metamorphosis takes decades.

When I take my walks each morning, these last few weeks of spring, I am often left amazed at the beauty of emerging life.

A week and a half ago, I spread grass seed and straw, and the grass is now starting to appear, as fine as baby’s hair, as fragile as a whisper.

On my porch, the house finch has settled down for what I presume is egg-sitting and not just her being lazy.  Although, she worked hard to build that nest and deserves a time to just chill.

Over the course of the spring this year, I have seen flowers bloom and then fade.  Blink and you miss the crocus and will have to wait a whole year to see it again.  The peonies, with blooms so robust, you feel like you can dive into them—the peonies are already wilting.  And the irises grow too heavy in the rain and collapse to the ground.

In Florida, with no seasons but wet and dry, most everything living, lasts forever.

But in more northern states, with seasons, you learn to appreciate the fleeting nature of life.  You never mourn what is lost, because you acknowledge its presence and its beauty at the time, and you know that it will return and, in the meantime, something else fantastic and amazing is just around the corner.

This is how we must embrace all change in our lives.

With confidence and faith that while the old ways fade away, God always replaces things with something new and dare I say even more amazing.  We may not know what is coming.  But with enough faith, we can become what author, Leonard Sweet called, “pneumonauts”—otherwise known as sailors of the Spirit.

In today’s reading from Luke 8:16-25, we really get enough material for three sermons.  In the first part, there’s the whole bit about not hiding a lit lamp under a jar—hint it’s a metaphor.  In the second part, we see Jesus’s mother and brothers looking for Him, and He is somewhat dismissive of them—that would be a whole other sermon and then you have the part I want to focus on which is the account of Jesus sleeping on the boat during a storm while the water is swamping the boat.

The disciples panic, because of course they do.  They call out to Jesus.  Jesus wakes up, rebukes the wind and waves and there is calm.  What I love about this is that the wind and waves are raging in the storm.  They are violent and deadly things, but when Jesus speaks, they listen.  Meanwhile, Jesus asks the disciples where their faith is.  Have they been listening?

This life and all the changes it has brought us and is bringing us and will continue to bring us is best survived by sailing with the Holy Spirit, riding the Holy Winds and knowing—not believing, but knowing—that God has us and the ride is going to be something amazing.

The world’s tiniest boxwood I planted a few weeks ago is still living.

And last week, the grass seed and straw seemed to physically repel the garbage truck as it made its way down the alley.  It didn’t even come close.  We’ll see what happens today, but I do believe that love multiplies—that that straw and seed shows that someone cares about that ground and maybe the garbagemen should too.

I believe that positive changes come when the seeds of love are sown.

Just yesterday, I was grabbing a package off the front porch, when the little girl who knocks always asking for books, started riding a bike past my house, but stopped suddenly when she saw me.  She dropped the bike—which was too big for her, and as I would learn a few minutes later, not hers—but she dropped the bike and said to me, “Oh hi.  I have some books for you at my house.”

“You have some books for me?” I said to her.

She nodded.  “If you want them.”

“Well, bring them over and let’s take a look at them.”

She ran off and returned a couple of minutes later with an armful of books.  She put them down on my bistro table and the first thing I did was ask her which were her favorites.  She pointed out her favorites and I said, “Are you sure you don’t want to hold onto those?”

She thought for a moment and then finally she managed to split the pile into two, books that she would donate to the little free library, which she did that very minute, carefully tucking them inside and the rest of the books that she would take back home.

I cannot stress enough what a beautiful thing it was that she did.

I have always made the books in my library completely free with no expectations.

For her to decide on her own to contribute back to the library—that my friends is the Holy Spirit at work. 

And the Holy Spirit always brings with her new life.

Amen.

 

Let Me Sow Love

My cat Pippin is an excellent spider catcher.  He will chase after a spider a millimeter wide … across the kitchen floor … in complete darkness.

Recently, though, I noticed that a spider, a medium-size spider about an inch wide—and if you’re thinking that sounds like a large spider, let me just warn you it’s all about perspective—but this particular spider was hanging out under my bathroom cabinets, just in front of the toe kick, and she was fast, too fast for Pippin—too fast for me even.

I had resigned myself to having to live with this spider and hope it didn’t have babies.

But then last week, it disappeared.  I thought maybe Pippin had finally caught it or chased it out.

Finally, though, my bathroom was spider-free.

And then Monday night, I noticed something under the bathroom cabinets.  It was large and brown and about the size of a small mouse—only it wasn’t a mouse; I would have preferred a mouse—it was the largest spider I have seen since moving back to Ohio.  And it was busy eating something—I don’t know what, but perhaps we know what happened to the previous spider.

I didn’t waste any time—I killed that sucker.   I squeezed it tight in a paper towel and then I unrolled about half a roll of paper towels and wrapped the dead spider in all of that, and then I put it in a Ziploc bag and then I threw it away in the kitchen garbage.

And then, I confronted Pippin.

“Where have you been?  How did you miss that spider?  How did it even get in here without you seeing it?”

And Pippin looked at me as if to say, “You mean that tarantula in the bathroom?  I don’t do those.”

I have a complicated relationship with the natural world.  Anyone who knows me knows how much I love nature photography, how contemplative photography in the natural world has made some dark days more than just bearable—the natural world has reminded me how to breathe, not just to breathe—but how to breathe.

And so some days ago, a friend of mine sent me pictures of the redwoods and the ocean from a trip she was on.  And recently, a Florida friend, sent me pictures of Sandhill Cranes and their baby.  That particular friend actually made her husband turn the car around so she could go back and get those pictures just for me.

But as much as I love the natural world, I don’t want it crawling through my bathroom in the middle of the night.  Even when I’m outside, I don’t even want to touch nature.  My primary camera has a long enough lens to see the rings of Saturn, literally. 

Lately, though, I have been trying new things.  Last week, I told you I had planted the world’s tiniest boxwood—after two weeks, I can tell you it’s still living.  And last weekend, I spread grass seed and straw over barren patches in my yard.  Before I spread the seed, I first tilled the soil, which mostly involved excavating what little dirt there was and bringing it to the surface above all the rocks.

As I was doing this, I chuckled to myself, thinking that in that moment, I was a living, breathing, walking incarnation of Jesus’s Parable of the Sower.

There are four parts to the Parable of the Sower if you remember.  First the farmer goes to sow his seeds, but drops some on the path where the seeds are quickly eaten by the birds.  Some seeds fall on rocky ground.  The seeds sprout quickly but with little soil the roots are not deep, and the plants wither in the sun.  Still other seeds fall among the thorns and the plants are later choked by the thorns.

And then, of course, some seed falls on good soil and produces a good crop.

Like many parables, Jesus then has to explain to His disciples what He’s talking about in Matthew 13:19-23 saying, “When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in their heart. This is the seed sown along the path. The seed falling on rocky ground refers to someone who hears the word and at once receives it with joy. But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away. The seed falling among the thorns refers to someone who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, making it unfruitful. But the seed falling on good soil refers to someone who hears the word and understands it. This is the one who produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.”

Here's what’s interesting to me—if this parable was only about the seed, wouldn’t it be called the Parable of the Seed?  Or if it were only about the soil in which the seed is thrown, wouldn’t it be called the Parable of the Soil or the Parable of the Seed and Soil?

But no, it’s called the Parable of the Sower because it is about the power and agency the sower has in spreading the Word of God.  We are the sower. 

If we tell someone we are Christian and then we behave in horrible and ghastly ways, the Word of God cannot grow and spread and take root in healthy ways.

We are the sower and we must prepare the land to take the seed.  To sow the Word of God is to sow love.  Today’s reading from Luke 6:27-38 is all about love.  Loving when it is hard to love.  Doing good.  Showing mercy.  These things create the perfect environment for the Word of God to take root and grow. 

I love my little house and the little plot of land it is built on.  In a neighborhood that is sometimes filled with the sound of gunfire, I have committed myself to sowing love.  And sometimes that is as simple as picking up the trash from the yard.  It is planting the world’s tiniest boxwood.  It is scattering literal seed on literally rocky ground with the hope that the figurative seed of God’s word will take root.  It is speaking to the house finch once again nesting on my front porch and speaking softly to her and encouraging her.  It is answering the door to the children who knock and giving them books to read.

We must sow love.  It’s the prayer of St. Francis, right? 

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:

where there is hatred, let me sow love;

where there is injury, pardon;

where there is doubt, faith;

where there is despair, hope;

where there is darkness, light;

where there is sadness, joy.

O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek

to be consoled as to console,

to be understood as to understand,

to be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive,

it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

 

Amen.

 

 

 

What's In Your Anxiety Toolbox?

A couple of weeks ago, Kristi Noem, the Secretary for Homeland Security, had her purse stolen while she was out eating with friends and family.

Like many people, when I first heard the news, I immediately had questions.

My first question was where was Kristi Noem’s Secret Service detail?  Letting someone close enough to steal a purse seems like a major failure.

My second question was the same as many people’s.  Why was she carrying $3000 in cash?  Who carries cash these days anyway?  The other day when the little girls rang the doorbell trying to sell me a flower they had plucked from the neighbor’s yard for a dollar, I had to search for four quarters to give them.

But perhaps even more bizarre than the $3000 in cash was that she was carrying around blank checks.  Kristi Noem is a few years older than me, but she and I are both considered Generation X and she is giving our generation a horrible name by not only carrying around cash, but also checks.

All of this, though, got me thinking about what I carry in my bag.  For the record, I don’t carry a purse or own a purse.  My grandmother used to have a purse to match every pair of shoes she had.  I consider myself low maintenance.  So I have an LL Bean backpack that I generally only carry to Morning Prayer.  It holds my Book of Common Prayer, printed copies of my reflection and the Bible readings for today and also my prayer journal.

But in the pockets, I also carry some “in case of emergency items” including hand sanitizer, cough drops, Advil, a Super Mario handheld game, and of course, a book.

And I swear to you that I didn’t plant this book in my bag just for this reflection.  I try and always have a book with me just in case I get stuck somewhere for a while and I make the book pocket size so I can carry it in my pocket if need be.

So what’s the book in my bag?

“The WORST-CASE SCENARIO Little Book for Survival.”

This series of books came out more than twenty years ago and they were written to be dry and humorous but also somehow dead serious at the same time.

The topics covered in this particular book include “How to Escape from a Bear,” and “How to Survive an Avalanche” and “How to Deliver a Baby in a Taxicab.”

What made these books so funny is the simple fact that most of us will never be in these situations.  I don’t carry around the book because I think I might have to deliver a baby in an Uber, I carry it for entertainment.

And for nostalgia reasons, wasn’t it nice, twenty-thirty years ago, when we didn’t live in a constant state of anxiety, bombarded by news 24/7 telling us that everything … everything was a worst-case scenario. 

A few weeks ago, I said that everyone these days is an overstimulated cat with nothing or no one to bite to make it stop.

I told my dad last week that I’d be lying if I said the recent shooting near my house and the incident with the man who came to my door and wouldn’t leave weren’t starting to get to me.  I’m tense.  Every time I hear the slightest sound from out front of the house, I pull out my phone and quickly check the Ring doorbell camera—which is why last night I caught something seemingly so scary, I swear I held my breath, and my heart stopped beating for a few seconds.

A car pulled up and stopped in the alley by my house.  A man got out, a white man with a scraggly beard.  He pulled a long wood pole/stick out of the back of his car and began to walk across my front yard to my door.  He was walking with a purpose and for a moment, I thought that purpose was to swing that stick at my house, to do massive vandalism, to cause pure mayhem.

For what reason would he do that?

Who knows?  The world is a crazy place these days.

But right as he got to the front porch, I remembered something.

I had ordered a rake from Walmart that morning.

He was delivering my rake.

In my defense, Ring doorbell cameras are not high definition.

The world these days is so stressful, every one of us should have a figurative anxiety toolbox that we can reach into, as needed, to pull out specific tools to deal with stress in a healthy manner.

For example, my toolbox contains tools like “take a walk” or “snuggle with the cat” or “eat some chocolate (not the whole bar).”  The truth is I have been having to dig deep into the toolbox lately.  A couple of days ago, I remembered “watch an episode of Bob Ross’s The Joy of Painting” was in my toolbox.  I now go to sleep each night, listening to Bob Ross’s soft, calming voice.

Even Jesus had a toolbox—I think the metaphor would have worked well for the son of a carpenter, but Jesus knew when He was being overstimulated—when He needed a break.  He never pushed through life.

In today’s reading from Luke 4:38-44, we see Jesus very, very busy, healing Simon’s mother-in-law from a fever, healing others with sicknesses and driving out demons and then we read, “At daybreak he departed and went into a deserted place.”

This was Jesus.  Whether He is asleep in a boat during a storm, or going off by Himself to pray, Jesus frequently understands the importance of sleep and rest and time with God the Father in prayer.

Last week, I added a new tool to my toolbox.  I was waiting for the trash to come and the longer I waited, the more apparent it became that, for whatever reason, the trash was not coming.  I was growing more and more anxious, but then I decided to do something I had only ever done one other time in my life.

I decided to plant something.

I had bought the world’s tiniest boxwood to plant out by my Little Free Library with the hope that the world’s tiniest boxwood would grow into something that could keep the garbage truck from continuing to run over my front yard.

The ground should have been soft from all the rain, but I only made it about three inches down before I hit rock and tree roots.  The area where my house had been built used to be a vacant lot and before that another house had stood there before being torn down.  The old house and the old trees that once lived there are not completely gone if you dig just a little bit.

Three inches would have to be enough for the world’s tiniest boxwood.  I gathered loose dirt around it and scattered some mulch to blanket it—I tucked in the world’s tiniest boxwood, hoping I had not dug it a shallow grave, but instead was giving it time to grow and dig its roots in.  I looked around and found large flat rocks to place around the plant and then I said a prayer, hoping that the world’s tiniest boxwood would live.

The answer to the world we live in these days, this soul-crushing, soul-sucking, soul-curdling world, I think is life.  It’s green things and forest bathing (as the Japanese call it).  It’s time spent breathing in the natural world.  It’s being surrounded by things that are raw and real.  And planting, gardening is something that brings us even closer to God the Creator.  The story of the human species begins in a garden after all. 

Incidentally, the garbage truck didn’t come that day.  I had to file a service request and make a phone call and then wait obsessively over the next 48 hours to see if my garbage bin would be emptied.  It was, finally, Friday morning.

In the meantime, the world’s tiniest boxwood continues to live and I will be using my new garden rake to help till the soil a bit around the boxwood, to lay out straw filled with fertilizer and seed to help the area by the alleyway to put down roots, to become something more than mud that gets washed away and instead become something with its own purpose, to help the grass grow—quite frankly to help anything grow at this point.  I will take even weeds.

So, think today, about what’s in your anxiety toolbox.  Is there anything in there that brings you closer to God, that gives you real purpose and hope in a crazy world?

Amen.