This week has been really. . .volatile.
Let’s start with the weather: We had an unseasonably warm week overall with temperatures in the upper seventies on Tuesday. Contrast that lovely warmth with the frost we had on Monday morning, and then add in the forecast low of 25 this coming Monday night. That’s a swing of over 53 degrees F within 7 days. Each day, the transition was fairly easy to take, but when I stepped back to look at the big picture, the feeling I had of wild temperature swings made sense.
Earlier, I wrote about the leaves on the trees, and how they would be mostly gone in just a few days. The cool nights and the rain helped a lot of the leaves to fall, but the greens of the grass and moss are still there, as verdant as ever! Don’t you just love the warm autumn colors blending with the vibrant summer colors? That is the color scheme of early fall.
The beauty of autumn makes me take a hard look at mortality. Everything is in some stage of dying off or preparing for hibernation. Like the squirrels who scurry to secure a stash of nuts for the winter, those of us who preserve our own food are busy canning, freezing and drying the bountiful harvest to prepare for the cold season.
When you step back to look at the bigger picture, other things come into view. Our nation is going through a dramatic struggle right now, with some forces pushing for us to blend into some kind of world government, and others striving to maintain our national sovereignty. It seems like every day is filled with skirmishes. Nations strive against nations, and ideologies clash. I hear stories of small defeats or victories, and then assumptive narratives of fear and hope. It can be overwhelming at times, but I do have a coping strategy. I learned it from my dad.
I was the first of my siblings to get married, and my dad was really stressed out on my wedding day. Somehow he got everything set up in time, but I knew he was exhausted. It was an outdoor wedding, and when the moment came for us to walk down the aisle, we were standing behind a French screen, waiting for the music to cue us. I was fixing my dress, and when I looked up, I noticed that he was looking behind us, out over the lake. At that moment, the wedding march began, and I touched his arm lightly and began to move forward. But he stopped me.
“Do you hear the birds?” he asked. I stared at him like he was crazy. I listened for just a half-second, then shook my head.
“We have to go now!” I whispered urgently.
“The birds are singing,” he said.
He saw I wasn’t listening, and sighed. Then he drew himself up, like someone preparing for a difficult job. He patted my hand once, and then we turned around the corner of the screen, faced the audience and began the measured walk down the aisle.
The whole exchange only took about 5 seconds, but it puzzled me long after, and I have never forgotten it, though it has been decades since. I realize now that he was trying to calm ME, and to calm himself, by being in the moment. He took just a second to look around at the beauty of the evening in the garden, and to listen to the call of the birds, as a way of centering himself. I can almost hear his thoughts as I look back in my mind’s eye:
“I am here, in the park that I love, enjoying the coolness of the evening. My oldest daughter chose to be married here; she is with me, and the birds are celebrating. We are on the brink of irreversible change, and this is the defining moment. I can panic, or I can focus on the beauty around me, but I can’t do both. This calm beauty is what I want to remember.”
The blur of years going by sends that moment into the past, and now here I am, sitting at my keyboard, noticing that I do a similar thing. Our conscious self has very little bandwidth. We either have to panic or feel peace. The things we pay attention to help to control our emotions. We can direct our eyes in any direction; we don’t have to spend all our time examining the car wreck of our world. Other things are happening, too. Just because something is loud doesn’t mean that it’s important.
In times of unbearable stress, there is release and joy in just being present in God’s world, watching the things he has created go about their daily tasks with pleasure. He made the birds to scavenge seeds, and to sing a concert for the sun as it rises. And they obey that calling every day.
No matter who the leader of a political party is, or what the status of that important shipment of windshield wiper blades is, or what the prophets of doom say over the airwaves: That little sparrow, who is singing her heart out, glorifies God by being who He created her to be. She adds a few impromptu notes to her song for good measure, and gives her tail feathers a bob before going off to work. The sun rises and does his work as well. The cows munch grass and nurse their calves. All this beauty and obedience is displayed by those who are submissive to and thus empowered by the One God who loves us.
My coping strategy is to appreciate what is going on around me. Being present and noticing how even if a foreign power threatens us, the grass still grows. The beauty of the leaves still develops. Water is still amazing. The sun still burns in the heavens, “quickening” us with warmth. Human beings are the only natural beings in the earth that fight God, but many of us have laid aside our weapons, realizing that we have been deceived. We do have an enemy, but it is not our Father. And our fight is to stay close to Him.
I feel the change happening. Today, we too, are in that moment just before everything changes. But fear not! (I am told that phrase appears 365 times in the Bible, once for each day.) If we put our hope in Jesus, God will protect us from what is coming. He will shelter us, and provide for our needs. He will inspire us to share our hope with others, because He wants us all to be with him.
When things become challenging, take a moment to look at His creation. His fingerprints are in the vein structure of a leaf, or the patterns in the clouds. They bear witness to the Truth, telling us that He loves us, and is wiser than we can fathom. He is sovereign, and if we trust Him, He will take care of us. Everything He made is beautiful. Consider this a gentle nudge in the right direction: Trust and obey Him, and find hope!
The Fullers Four 