Reality Reflection: Grow Like Spring

Have you ever watched spring come to life up close? If you’re not a gardener or naturally curious or have kids that are curious explorers you may not pay attention to the developments, especially if you’ve got bad spring allergies. But something I know from my various attempts at growing plants and from being curious about and loving nature there’s something fascinating that I’ve learned over the years: the growth that plants start with isn’t usually the final result. What do I mean? Many plants have one set of leaves that the grow initially, maybe 2-4 of them along with the little green sprout it starts with, and then as the plant grows, it grows the leaves that the plant is known for along with growing in height and adding flowers or seeds or whatever the plant is known for. And, if you look at the young tree plants, you know that they’re so small and fragile compared to the sometimes massive trees that they grow into.

It reminds me that where we start isn’t where we end up, but we all start somewhere and we all start with growth. Spring starts off with lots of delicate blooms and fresh leaves, all of which turn into stronger, larger, firmer leaves that fill out trees so that we can’t see the branches and trunk, or even see through them up to the sky when you stand at the base of the tree. It brings me hope that just because I start out on a chapter of my life feeling weak and floundering around, it doesn’t mean that I can’t or won’t end up able to be proud of the results when all is said and done.

And even if the result of this life chapter is short lived but beautiful and fragrant like the seasonal life of the hyacinth flowers, or long but more sensitive and delicate like some of the dogwood trees, you know that it’s an important contribution to the beauty that is spring and the overall story of nature and the world. Spring is more beautiful and magical because of all the layers, and how they contribute in their different ways to the journey from winter to summer and beyond. Don’t let where the journey starts or what the journey looks like make you think that it’s not worth it or not right or not an integral step from where you are to where you’re going, because if just one of the components of spring decided to not show up, it would be evident and we’d notice the lack. What surprising beginnings have you had as you’ve grown?

Working with Gravity

You’ve heard the saying “what goes up must come down,” right? It describes the law of nature (gravity) such that anything that goes up must deal with those forces if it wants to stay up. It’s why we can’t just “put” people in the air but have to create incredible engineering feats called airplanes and fuel them so they can get us through the air from Point A to Point B. I don’t disagree that there are benefits to conquering the gravity issue, it takes a significantly longer amount of time to get from California to New York if you’re not flying and usually most people don’t have that kind of time. In line with the gravity question, usually we’ve got a choice of what is the most practical or easiest in making big decisions. For example, it makes a lot of sense to make high-rise buildings (or at least buildings with multiple levels) for people to work and live in because if everyone had a single family home we would run out of usable space and very few people could actually live in or even near big cities that many people love. And when it comes to building roads (or structures for that matter), usually it’s a lot easier and more cost effective to build over a hill (within reason) or around existing structures and roads than it is to go through them.

That’s the big picture of life, what about life on a more personal level? It’s a lot easier and less expensive to do a little interior renovation to add shelving and better storage and maybe even finish an interior space that’s currently unfinished than to add onto your house to get more space. It’s a lot easier to add some skills to your portfolio than to go back to school for a completely different career if you want to earn more and mostly like what you currently do. It’s a lot easier to get healthy if you start with small and simple steps like eating a little healthier and exercising a little more than it is to go full-tilt into a lifestyle makeover. It’s easier to start with one issue in your family or relationship to work on than trying to address everything all at once.

I’m not denying that sometimes it’s best to “go big or go home” and conquer gravity (or do all of whatever your big challenge or challenges at the moment is/are), but often we think we need supersize answers when what we really need is just putting in a little time, effort and creativity to go the much easier route and get to a result that will be very good for us. Would the “conquer gravity” version be excellent too? Yes, of course, it definitely has a place and is a viable option, which means that with each victory we plan we should be considering both the ‘lots of work’/”gravity defying” option as well as the option that’s a lot more straightforward, practical and less disruptive that might work just as well. What difference has it made for you when you’ve stopped trying to conquer gravity and instead work within the bounds of practicality on your victory journeys?

Ready to Grow this Spring

Each season has a special magic to it, doesn’t it? Nothing replicates the sound of snow falling in the middle of the dark, cold night, or how beautiful everything looks with the weak winter sun reflecting off a fresh coat of snow. Autumn of course has the magic of transforming the colors of leaves so that everything is the colors of a bonfire. Summer is made up of fireflies, beautiful moons, fresh plants everywhere that started from nothing and grow to not only look good but many produce food too, and of course those warm summer nights that make you want to stay up all night. And then there’s spring where life returns after winter’s cold darkness and it reminds us that even when things look bad and hopeless they can still come back to life.

But as inspiring as it can be to see life bursting around us as spring works its magic (and with it the need for tissue boxes to deal with a tough allergy season), it can be overwhelming to feel like we have to keep up with the pace and scope of life that comes with spring if we want to grow now too. Seeing all the plants reappear, all the leaves on the trees grow, and how fast the trees and plants flower and then the flowers drop away, it can make us feel like we have to grow personally at that pace too and if we can’t do all that on top of our regular lives we’re failures or not good enough.

Luke 16:10 holds a good reminder for us when we’re feeling like we’re not growing fast enough or big enough or not keeping pace with everyone else: “If you are faithful in little things, you will be faithful in large ones. But if you are dishonest in little things, you won’t be honest with greater responsibilities.” One of the many lessons Jesus teaches throughout His years of ministry is that there’s nothing wrong with starting, or even staying, small. He placed importance on the lives of the birds of the air as well as the little children, and shared many parables about how it’s just as important to take care in the “little” things of life as it is the big responsibilities.

So yes, if you’re ready and able to grow big this spring, go for it! Be inspired and take advantage of that energy. And if you’re feeling inspired by the growth around you but only have a little that you can give to it now, don’t be ashamed or sad about it, be thankful for the ways that you can grow and focus on doing your best in those areas. Don’t let size be your only factor in choosing what to work on in your life, or in accepting what God has sent your way. How will you grow this spring?

Reality Reflection: God Smiled on Earth Day

I love Earth Day! Well, maybe I should start off with how fascinated I am by the planet that we all live on (and thankful too!). I love watching spring bring new life to a dark and drab landscape that was so cold in winter, how plants grow in summer to not only care for animals but to grow fruits and vegetables and other things for us to eat and build with too, and even how autumn properly cycles nature down so it can endure the winter. I love being able to connect with nature even if it’s just staring at trees or a beautiful rainbow while sitting in traffic in my car, or yes, even sneezing because of all the pollen in the air from the growth that brings shade for hot summer days. And I love Earth Day because it brings millions of people together every year to celebrate and care for our planet.

I love knowing that friends and neighbors came out today to do even a little to give our Earth a helping hand. I love knowing that the next generation planted trees today next to trees that were planted decades ago by people they’ll never meet or hear about, but who cared enough about the people who would live on Earth after them to ensure that they’d have a couple more trees. I loved seeing and hearing all the commercials about what different businesses are doing on Earth Day or every day to do their part about the future of our natural world. I loved knowing that today many organizations encouraged and assisted people in getting out to experience nature, whether it was a hike, day at the beach, trip to the garden center or sports field for kids sports practice.

But maybe what was most special for me today was hearing the hard, soaking rain at the end of the day where I live. It was almost like God saying “thank you for planting all those plants and trees, picking up all that trash and spending time enjoying the planet today, here’s some rain to refresh the Earth and water what you planted, giving it a good start.” I know every place didn’t get rain today, some probably got snow or had a heat wave, but for me it was one of those little confirmations that come along every so often that encourage you to keep going, remind you that you are making progress, or that God is watching and wants you to know you’re not alone whether it’s been a great day or a really difficult one. And maybe, just maybe this Earth Day will be the one that helps turn the tide for the future, both in respect for the Earth we share and in its prospects for the future.

From Home to Victory

Why do we sometimes look at alternatives or options if we aren’t really planning to bring them to life? There were two things that brought me back to this question the other day. First was watching one of those home reno shows where the homeowners are renovating their homes while also looking at other homes to see if they end up wanting to stay or move to (usually) greener pastures. The second was seeing another article about Frank Lloyd Wright’s Broadacre City, which was a model Wright thought up that shared a different version of “urban” planning and what cities of the future might look like. You know I’m usually up for a good thought experiment, I’m always considering options and alternatives and possibilities, and these two examples are full of great lessons for our victory journeys.

Let’s start with the obvious question: why look at homes you don’t think you’re going to buy (other than because it’s fun)? The main reason would be because you never know what’s out there and you may find something that has fewer compromises (and more potential) than what you’ve got now. But this scenario of both renovating and looking for a new home actually forces you to finally find the money and hire the people to do the work you’ve been talking about and haven’t gotten around to doing yet. At the very least at the end of the exercise you will have a nicer house that can sell for more if and when you do sell it. Sometimes you need a little external motivation to get you going on the work you should have done all along.

The less obvious question is did Wright ever build Broadacre City? And the answer is no, but he never intended to. So why draw up the elaborate plans with enough detail that they could be built? Because sometimes we need a perspective shift to help us tackle the difficult discussions or see things in a new way. Wright was using this city as an exercise to help his students debate communities of the future as well as social, economic and environmental issues that existed in the day (and are still applicable questions many decades later).

So the next time you have a seemingly pointless exercise come your way, don’t be so quick to brush it off, especially if it shows up in proximity to your victory journey. It might be the perspective, excuse, motivation, connection or structure to help you get from where you are to where you actually want to be.

Life After Easter

One of the things that you know I love most about Christmas is how long we celebrate it generally. Many start with either the day after Thanksgiving or the first day of Advent and continue with decorations and gatherings through the New Year, at least a week after the official date of Christmas, which means that Christmas is celebrated for more than 30 days. But this week I realized that we don’t do the same with Easter. We celebrate maybe Palm Sunday through Easter Sunday or maybe Good Friday through Easter Sunday or just Easter Sunday and then we’re done. The Easter eggs go away, there might be a little left over chocolate, but other than that there aren’t decorations or gatherings or Easter wishes shared after Easter Sunday. The more I thought about this the more if annoyed me because Easter is just as if not more important than Christmas in the scheme of things, so why don’t we give it as much attention as we do Christmas?

I’m sure part of the reason is because it’s not as big of a deal in the non-church world, whereas Christmas is celebrated by many who don’t celebrate the baby in a manger, which I can understand. But what about those of us in the faith? In some ways this is why I appreciate and make a point of participating in the 7 weeks of Lent following Ash Wednesday, because it does give me some time to reflect on Easter, even if it’s not as broadly recognized or participated in as Advent is. But again, both Christmas and Easter are (or should be) more about what’s in your heart than what goes on around you and what others are doing, as much as they are both events that we celebrate with others. So really, we shouldn’t let anyone except ourselves decide how long we celebrate these two special occasions.

But at the same time I do understand that it’s hard to celebrate something when everyone else says something along the lines of “time’s up” or “it’s done.” So what if rather than thinking about how we can celebrate Easter Sunday for whatever amount of time we’d like after the actual date, we looked at it from the perspective of what happened after Easter Sunday for Jesus and the apostles? What did the days and weeks after Easter Sunday look like for them? Yes, those days and weeks were filled with Jesus proving that He was indeed alive, but they were also a time of transition into a new way of life and faith that was filled with the gift of forgiveness, freedom and hope that wasn’t there before. How do we, like the apostles, learn to incorporate the Good News into our daily lives? Maybe it means picking up a devotional habit, making an effort to listen to sermons outside of Sunday, attending a Bible Study, volunteering for a faith-based organization regularly (including your church), or really paying attention to how you live and the example you’re setting with your life. What will you work on incorporating into your life because of the gift of Easter Sunday?

Reality Reflection: A Life of Meaning

The things that make you anxious and the things that bring you relief are often funny. Not always funny ha-ha, but funny fascinating and interesting and often surprising. For instance we have tax day coming up in the US and for as many years as I’ve done taxes in one form or another I always build it up to be bigger than I anticipated in my mind, and when it’s over I’m like “oh, that wasn’t so bad” regardless of the results when all the numbers are all put in and computed. Also this week I had what we hope to be good breakthroughs with some clients, of course as it often is time will tell. These breakthroughs weren’t necessarily the big crazy things that you might think would give my clients and I relief, yet they were an important step in what will hopefully be their next step towards the transformation they’re seeking and regardless were helpful to me as I work to support them.

If you’ve been paying attention you probably know that on Sunday here in the US we celebrated Easter (Orthodox Easter is tomorrow/this Sunday), and I chose to attend a very early service that we call a “sunrise service.” It’s something I’ve always enjoyed, and in the past it’s been on par with my enjoyment of the midnight Christmas Eve services where we welcome in Christmas with candlelight. But the service I wanted to attend this year, probably because I payed less attention to the details than I should have, started two hours earlier than I anticipated, so instead of it being a 6 or 6.30am start, it was a 4.30 am start, which meant that the service started in the darkness and ended with the sun up and shining. But as I shared about it with someone this week the word they used fit better than any I had come up with to really express how different this service was from other sunrise services. They commented how meaningful the service must have been, which is exactly what it was. As I said, I’ve always found the sunrise service to be one I enjoy attending, but attending this service that while lengthy was spiritual on a different level. There was something really profound about really experiencing the transition from the darkness of the weekend and the events we were honoring, Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, to the joy and celebration of Easter morning.

For me, this week has been a really good exercise in the importance of being open and willing to try new things, to do more communicating and asking questions, and to remember that things often aren’t going to be as difficult, stressful, or unsatisfying as my mind might build them up into being. What little, or big, things in your week this week were meaningful to you?

Why Autumn Leaves Fall in Spring

Have you noticed autumn leaves on the ground scattered among the new bits of green growth starting to pop up? Or seen them dancing down the street with a spring breeze? It something that happens every spring where I live. Why does it happen? Because some trees don’t shed all of their leaves before the winter snows (or during them), but when the new growth starts to happen in the spring, that growth pushes the old leaves out to make room for the new ones. It’s yet another Mother Nature experience that can teach us so many different lessons for our lives and in our victory journeys. But the one I want to focus on is one that you might have missed when you see the autumn leaves in the spring or didn’t catch in my sharing, I know I did for many years. The lesson is simply that it’s OK to need some help.

I’m sure that the trees aren’t thinking as I shared here, but it must feel good to be able to release those last few leaves that just weren’t going anywhere from the previous growing season, especially since it’s making room for new growth and new beautiful green leaves. After all, it would look pretty funny if among all the bright, new green leaves there were dry, brown ones just hanging out too. So God designed it that if a tree didn’t lose all the leaves in the previous autumn drop, the tree would get a little help from the new leaves growing in. It’s not about a tree not having done their job in the autumn or over the winter, but God saying that the did the job it was supposed to do, and He put in place a little extra support for the spring to make sure that the tree has the best chance for growth and health in the new growing season. If trees could talk I’m sure they’d say something along the lines of “thank you for having my back and helping me start strong.”

How do you approach or perceive help that comes along in your life? Do you see it as someone saying that you’re incompetent or not capable enough or as the helping hand there to help you be your best and thrive in life? As the classic song says “I get by with a little help from my friends.” As much as our victory journeys are ours alone, very little in life today is truly 100% dependent on us. I’d say that more than 90% of the time we’re always succeeding or even living with the help of something or someone even if it seems like it’s all us. For example if you were to wash the dinner dishes, you might be doing it all on your own, but you’re doing it with the help of a sponge or rag, the water piped into your home, maybe the light in your ceiling so you can see to make sure they’re clean, a towel or stand to let them dry, and of course some soap! So as much as you’re doing it all by yourself, many other people who you will never know or directly connect with helped you emerge from the kitchen victorious and with clean dishes. The sooner we accept that it’s healthy to be part of a team and be supported on our victories, the easier it will become to ask for help we need when we need it, and the quicker we’ll incorporate support into our victory plans which will help us accomplish our victories more confidently, quicker and with less stress. Sometimes leaves fall in the spring, and sometimes we need a little help to get to our next milestone or grow a little more too. What help are you thankful for in your life?

God’s Timing

What kind of relationship do you have with time? Like many people I have a relationship that consists of lots of uncertainties. I never know exactly how time will work, whether it’s going to move in what I feel is a normal pattern, if it’s going to move seemingly faster, or if it’s going to drag on. Sometimes it drags on because the timing isn’t right for what we’re trying to get done, and if you’re lucky enough to get it done it will take twice as long or longer than it should to get it done. As we celebrated Easter on Sunday and Passover starting last week, I’ve been thinking about timing and how God chose those two times for Jesus to die and rise again and for the people of Israel to be free from Egypt and Pharaoh. Why did God choose those specific times for these events to happen? How did they manage to work out as well as they did when so many other things don’t seem to work out? What can we learn from them for our lives today?

The first thing we need to talk about is the fact that while God could have waited for another year or decade or century, He didn’t wait until things were so bad that they couldn’t be resolved or were going to end up in a Noah’s Ark type situation where serious cleanup would be required before things could move forward. It’s an important lesson for us when it comes to time: give yourself enough leeway so that if the timing isn’t right right away, you’ve got time to get things done properly and to your satisfaction.

Second, know that if we’re working with God’s timing we can trust that it will work out. This is something that Mary and Joseph, Jesus’ parents, understood when they were approached to be His parents. They knew that if God thought that now was the right time for Jesus to come to Earth and that they were the right people to be His parents, they could trust God to work it all out and that He knew what He was doing. This is a hard one for us because so often it seems really random! But as we learn from the Bible, there are multiple reasons why Mary and Joseph were chosen, even if they didn’t know it at the time, just like we learn that there were reasons for so many other happenings and specific people chosen. So God planned everything out and timed it just right back in Bible times, don’t you think He could do the same today?

Finally, God didn’t give up just because there was some resistance. The journey to Easter Sunday took some 30 years from the time Jesus was born to the days He died and rose again. Thankfully the events surrounding the first Passover didn’t take that long, but they did take a few months (how many depends on what you include in the story and how long different scholars think the actual plagues took to happen). As we talked about above, sometimes things take longer than we might want, which also can include resistance, and is why we do ourselves a big service when we pad the time we assign to important things. The other side of it is that while God may have worked within a specific time frame, He was much more focused on the ultimate goal than the time it would take to accomplish it.

Maybe the hardest part to accept is that time, like so many other things, is a relationship that we have to work on, and will work on, throughout our whole lives. What kind of relationship do you have with time and how are you working to improve that relationship?

Reality Reflection: the Gift of Easter

Today is Easter Sunday for a large portion of the world that celebrates Easter (the rest of those who celebrate Easter will celebrate next Sunday this year for Orthodox Easter). Easter is the second large holiday in the Christian world that we celebrate each year, alongside of Christmas. I find it hard to miss either of these holidays because even if you’re not Christian you can’t miss the huge displays in stores of seasonally appropriate merchandise including gift wrapping for Christmas and chocolate bunnies for Easter, plus lots of grocery store displays about what to serve on the holiday table.

But when it comes to these two holidays we see them a bit different. Christmas is always associated with gifts, from the gifts around the Christmas tree to the gift of the baby Jesus and gifts from the wisemen. Easter is different because of where it begins for many: Good Friday and the sad and horrifying events of Jesus’ betrayal, trial and death. So even though Easter itself is an extremely joyous event there’s still an attachment of sadness that comes along with it. So imagine my surprise when I was reading a devotion this week which talked about Easter being a gift too.

The more I thought about it, the more right I realized they were in seeing Easter as a gift. Easter is the gift of eternal life thanks to the sacrifice that God and Jesus made when Jesus died on the cross and came back to life again victoriously having conquered the grave. Easter is the gift of forgiveness of our sins. Easter also is the gift of wholeness and healing, with Jesus taking our place and punishment so that we don’t have to suffer it for eternity and so that we could someday once again be the person God originally created us to be: one with Him. Easter is the gift of reassurance that everything that Jesus said while He was alive, and many things that were said before His life, were and are true. That’s a pretty incredible bunch of gifts in my mind, and a whole lot to be thankful for as we celebrate this Easter.

“But He was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins. He was beaten so we could be whole. He was whipped so we could be healed.” Isaiah 53:5