You Never Enter the Same Paragraph Twice
I can see the beauty in this late November day. This is progress for me. It is not quite Thanksgiving, it is not Christmas, and, in this moment at least, I am not full of anticipation of either. I am simply out for a walk. The pumpkin that was formerly the perfect orange orb in the neighbor’s yard shrunk in on itself and is now deformed. The crimson and gold leaves have fallen off the trees, leaving branches to pierce the ashen clouds. The flowers, withered and died, are not yet covered in bright winter white. The landscape is full of grays and browns. The natural world seems to have reverted to a state of decay.
"Cairngorm autumn" by GaggieITMI is licensed under CC BY 2.0
Even so, a smile creeps across my lips. My heart is light. In fall, the truth comes out. Plants can no longer hide behind showy, fragrant blossoms. Their suitors, the bees and butterflies, have abandoned them to resume their natural course. The flowers’ final act, to drop the seeds of new life, is all that’s left to accomplish before their winter rest. Autumn’s showcase, the troupe of leaves, have ended their dance to the ground. Now they will be crunched underfoot and nourish the soil, nature’s version of paying it forward.
I am surprised to find myself delighting in the shades of brown, the still-distinct shape of the oak leaves scattered along the roadside. The varying textures of the flowers, shadows of their former selves, yet ready to release the seeds that will ensure next spring will be decked out in all its glory.
It’s easy to find beauty when beauty abounds. It can be a challenge to find it on days like today. On this Thanksgiving eve, I am thankful for a new thing: The discovery of joy–perhaps even holiness–in the in-between.
Although I wrote this a while back and posted it on my website, I only recently brought it to my writing group for critique. One of my friends there wondered if holiness was too reverent a word for the subject matter. Another friend suggested this as a place for me to expand my thinking. (This proved useful as my initial question to the group was what can I add to make this a fuller essay.) After our meeting, I asked myself, Yeah, what was I thinking when I wrote that? After all, it has been nearly two years since I wrote it. I can’t remember if it was one of those lines I perseverated on or one of those lines God gently placed in my mind like a feather. They say you never enter the same paragraph twice. Although I don’t know what I was thinking at the time, I can tell you what “holiness in the in-between” means to me today.
Hope in the promise.
These in-between times of autumn, like the waiting rooms of cocoons and wombs, are transitional periods, times when we move from one reality to another. In Matthew 9, we read about a ruler kneeling before Jesus, telling him his daughter has just died, but then demonstrating his faith when he says, “But come and put your hand on her, and she will live.” When he enters the man’s house, Jesus says, “The girl is not dead, but asleep.” Jesus does indeed bring the girl back to life (Matt. 9:18-26). Could it be that the girl’s death was another one of those in-between times?
I have to wonder if the girl’s father, the one who visited Jesus and requested a miracle, railed against death like most of us would. The Scripture says she had “just died.” That’s not too specific. How long had it been? Did he have time to work through the five stages of grief? Or was he stuck in one? Or maybe not. After all, Jesus had already been performing miracles, among them, raising people from the dead. Maybe this man saw in Jesus an alternative to death. Maybe he had vision.
It takes vision to see a reality different from the one everyone else sees. When Jesus visited the girl, He said she was “not dead, but asleep.” Then He took her by the hand, and she got up. It’s almost like he was asking the onlookers (and us) to look beyond our current circumstances. To look beyond appearances. Jesus and the man looked at the same situation with hope and faith in what Jesus could do in a seemingly hopeless situation. It takes vision to see healing even while there is sickness, calm even though the storm rages, to see a sandy escape route in the depths of the sea, to see a desert floor covered in bread for another day, to see resurrection when it seems death has won the battle with life.
It is a holy thing to have vision. In Matthew 3:2, Jesus said “the kingdom of Heaven is at hand.” It is an “already, not yet” kingdom that exists in Heaven, at the future coming of Christ, but also presently in the hearts of believers. It is something we work towards, but it also already exists in our world as Christ manifests Himself through His church. In order for us to truly follow Jesus, we must be visionaries and be able to look at the world through His eyes, seeing situations not as hopeless but maybe just in need of a little of our attention.
Similar to the way we humans can only see a portion of the spectrum of light in the world and the portions of the spectrum containing infrared and ultraviolet light are beyond our vision, I long to see a version of reality that, although superimposed on the natural world, enables me a broader vision. I want to see the world through the lens of what God deems possible. We must trust that He is doing something in the mundane, the ugly, the rotting, and even the rotten. When the natural world breaks down, the supernatural can break in.
This fall, as all those shades of green and myriad colors dull to shades of brown, I’ll take a walk in the sepia world. I’ll stoop by the side of the road, pinch a dry flower husk from its brittle stem, crumble it in my hand, and then stand in reverent awe as I hold the seeds--perhaps hundreds of them--that were released in the death I forgot was not the end. God knows the future of each one. Lord, give us eyes that see your vision and all the promise it holds.
