Consider the Lilies

Lent is a good time to start something new. It's a time for refocusing, examining our lives and habits, stopping some things and starting some others. It's a season of renewal.

The good news is, that doesn't have to stop at Easter. In fact, it shouldn't: did this time of refocusing help you? Did you start a new habit that's turned out to be fruitful? Have you made progress on something you've been meaning to cut out of your life? Excellent! Don't turn your back on that progress. There's a beautiful line from An American Victory, "Every season ends that another may begin." Rejoice in how far you've come and begin again today.

Every freaking thing in this city is built on a slant.
I suppose they really had no choice.

About two months ago, construction crews began tearing out and carting off dirt from the empty lot behind my apartment building. Fortunately, I took this photo of some new bulbs sprouting up on top of an old wall just two days before they were all gone. However, some of them didn't go far: a couple of the bulbs, after being cast aside, managed to re-root themselves in the ground and are still growing. Another one clung to just enough soil for roots and leaves to continue to grow, even though it didn't get back into the ground.

I've had my eye on that little clump (I thought it was daffodils, but a gardener on Twitter said it looked more like daylilies) for weeks, watching it hang in there, and thinking to myself, "I should just take it home and put it in a flowerpot." Earlier this week, I noticed that the leaves were starting to look wilty, as if they'd done all they could on their own, and I decided that I'd reached now-or-never time for these tenacious little bulbs. So I pulled back enough of the fence to reach under and grab the root ball, then carried it home in my hand. (And managed to sprinkle some dirt into my lunch bag, as I discovered when I went to take a sip of tea from my thermos and got a mouthful of dirt. Good thing I have a strong immune system.)

So the daffodils-which-are-probably-really-daylilies went from this:

Yes, I willingly dumped dirt onto my kitchen counter.
That's part of the fun here in Su-Land.

 To this:

And then from my kitchen counter to my window, where I hope it will get enough sun to thrive. It's been getting about 10 hours a day of sun in the construction site, and inside my apartment it will probably get about two. Google says they'll grow in any light conditions, so here's hoping... and besides that, we all know bulb plants are long-lasting, hardy creatures.

Jesus himself said, "Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin," and while he did not add, "and yet a human will pick one up off the side of the road and take it home to be her own," I think the sentiment is there. These are plants that will survive cold and heat, lots of sun or little sun, being tended with loving care in a garden or being tossed aside by large machinery to make way for a parking lot. And if this little slice of creation can take all that and keep going, how much more can we?

"Will it grow?" "It will." 

One of the reasons I feel so passionate about having a strong community is for moments like this lily was having--when I've given all I can find within me and it's still not enough to get through the day, along comes someone who can say, "Let's take these next steps together." I hope you have the same--someone who can offer a hand at just the right time, someone you can call on when your inner reserves are tapped, someone who can plant you into their spare flowerpot. (Okay, so there is such a thing as taking a metaphor too far.)

The season of Lent has come to an end, and I pray it brought you blessing and strength for the season ahead of us now, and a community to sustain you through the times when the inner strength is just not enough. Happy Easter, my friends.