Monday, January 31, 2011

"Mundane" Miracles

     As I walk my acres in late, snow-covered January with a February storm on the horizon, I reflect on the "mundane" miracles of last spring and summer.  I call them "mundane" because they are not spectacular events that will make the headlines anywhere, just miracles that God has incorporated into His creation.  They are, in a sense, natural miracles.  I'm afraid that too often our lives are surrounded by miracles that we just fail to recognize.  They are simple things that God is performing daily in our lives.  Life is a miracle.  We--I--need better eyes, a more sensitive heart--to see God's hand active in my life.  As the poet says, "Simplicity carried to extremes is elegance."  We serve an elegant God.
     The mundane miracles at Iten's Acres come in three forms:  survival, timing, and surprises.  The survival miracle is a testament to my stupidity.  I have a small rose of Sharon at the front of my property that I brought up here from Mom's property in South Carolina three years ago.  Sadly, accidentally, every spring with the first mowing of the new year I have cut the thing down.  And each year it has come back.  Three years in a row, no matter how sincerely I told myself to be careful and not mow the poor thing down, I whacked it none the less.  (I suppose after three years in a row it no longer qualifies as an accident.  I'm just brain dead.)  Last spring I was sure it would just give up and quit.  Not so.  In fact, it came back taller than it's ever been before.  I guess it figures that if it grows tall enough, the dumb human on the mower will see it next time.  It is a survivor.  God has put into it a "no quit" attitude.  Think what a miracle it will be when it grows tall enough to bloom! 
     The miracle of timing has to do with plants or seeds that I have planted years ago, and they have never bloomed,  In fact, I had no idea that they were even still there.  They were beyond hopeless.  I didn't even think of them as still existing.  Ah, wrong again.  Oh me of little faith.  Two of them were in the wild area--some red flax from South Carolina and some white monarda.  For five years God had them hiding there waiting to catch me off guard.  A miracle of perseverance.  The greatest mundane timing miracle of the spring was a day lily in the drainage ditch at the front of the property.  When I first moved here, I thought it would be great to have day lilies all over the small hill that runs from County Road 25 down to the ditch.  So, I planted a lot of them all along the front.  One problem.  The "hill" belongs to Morrow County, and they like to keep it mowed.  I came home from school one day and the hill was flat--goodbye lilies.  Yet, this spring, five years later, right down by the drainage ditch, behold! a beautiful orange day lily.  Take that big government!  I think I did a dance when I saw them. (Not a lovely image I imagine)  Beauty had been waiting for the right conditions and "bam," there they were. Unfazed by time. Took my breath away. 
     The miracles of surprises occurs every year.  I don't know who God's gardeners are--birds, the wind, animals--but every year I have new flowers come up and bloom, often in the least expected places.  This year it was trollius and bluets in the bog area, phlox in the wild area, bittersweet under the canopy (I know most people call them weeds; I love them.), and flower-of-an-hour in the middle of a flower bed.  The variety of miracles in God's bag of flowers is amazing.  I don't know what miracles He has planned for 2011, but I can't wait.
     There's just something marvelous about walking through God's creation and "discovering" "new" beauty.  I guess I'm just a strange old man, but I love--cherish--those moments, those miracles.  They enrich my soul.  Mundane miracles are exquisite.  You just have to look for them, and wait patiently for God's timing, and live in expectation of the glorious surprises.

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