Good Things Given
"You can never have enough of this world, its peaches, their taste so sudden a sitting man stands...and yet how we tire of it, how we raise our hand against it, how we avoid it, as if it were a mother saying, Look me in the eye. Just look me in the eye." ~ Teddy Macker
Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow. ~James 1:17
Do I have the patience to consider small moments? To wait in the overlooked but stunningly beautiful offerings of garden restoration that are meant for me to know? My son's laughter, his eyes when he tells me a joke, the feel of his little hand (that is no longer so little) in mine as we cross the street? Can I not slow down enough to experience and be present and take it in and allow the threads of that moment to move my heart to praise? To have gratitude for being alive--to be melded to and to taste and see that the Lord is good?
Can I not be 'enveulta in lino' and praise the Lord for how the wrapping of my body in swirls of linen makes me feel lavished and swathed? Surely, He meant for me to pause and consider and sense and savor!
And what of the so many books my son and I share--the moving of our hearts to know and find ourselves in other characters and places and stories and lives and be witness to a tapestry that is not ours? And yet, they are ours.
And what of my hands in the dough? Knowing that every stretch and every turn and every fold will nourish and satisfy those that I love, whether they savor it alone or with the light fairy-ing of drizzled honey? I fold again and again.
And what of my mind and heart, when he 'lingers like a haunting refrain?' Am I not meant to taste that too? Are they not gifts, good and perfect, those moments when I think of him and my heart is moved to a place of remembering his words, his eyes, his gaze, and even the scent of him? With palms open, can I not receive those gravities from You, from him, and be moved to worship? I can be his and he can be mine.
Can I draw my hands from the soil and admire, with hope and wondering, the life that You will grow there, after I have answered the calling to transformation for this gentle transplant with only the tender care of a hoping mother? I tend and cultivate and trust the earth.
What of the keys that move, with the fluidity of moving water, as my hands spread through the black and white or when they pull the bow to find that repeated melody that reminds me of great sadness? Or perhaps of great redemption? They both find their existence together with me.
Yes, I can slow down. I can hold myself back from moving too quickly, from stealing their due reverence.
How can You create beauty even amongst such brokenness? How can what is torn and mended exist in the same space and breath in time? My mind cannot understand it but my soul can find its knowing there.
Help me Lord, to taste and see that You are good,
that You delight in my wellbeing,
and those snapshots of time and space are rich gifts that are meant for me. Help me to steep in them.
They are good.
So good.
Not yet complete, but restorations are coming.
Well, hey there!
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