Tulips and Junk Drawers

“Don’t shine so that others can see you. Shine, so that through you, others can see Him.” C.S. Lewis

The sky is a bright hue of blue; the air is crisp and clean; the sun is shining everywhere; our tulips can now be seen!

Tulips. In February! Since temperatures dipped into the twenties last night (and may dip lower over the next few nights) I worry that the tulips’ premature arrival may result in their untimely demise. And yet … plants have survived much of the past billion years anyway, so maybe I don’t need to fret.

One of the things I notice about retirement, especially as a retired cleric, is that the rhythms of the church year have begun to fade. Oh sure, I’m in church regularly and do my part to keep the kingdom of God from falling apart at the seams (which is what I presume people mean when they tell me I keep them in stitches), but the daily routine of planning services, reading and studying scriptures, wrestling with angels and demons, visiting the sick and shut-ins, and all the rest has removed from me my sense of sacred time.

I have a clock that hangs on the wall above and behind my computer monitor that tells me the time AND the day of the week. My church calendar tells me we have just begun Lent, and I attended the Ash Wednesday service (so I wouldn’t have to repent for missing it), but I’m just not “feeling” it this year. In some ways I feel like I’m a trusty tool that has been moved from the tool chest and dropped into the junk drawer. Available if needed, but no longer essential.

I’m not telling you this as a moribund  soul looking for sympathy. No, quite the opposite. I expect I’ve got a few decades left under the hood. The gears in the old brain box still have most of their teeth, and I stay active enough to keep them more lubricated than gunky.

No, I’m just reflecting on the nature of mortal flesh – mine, to be more precise – and coming to grips with what it means. More than that, I’m learning how to get my eyes out of the rearview mirror and back onto the road where they belong. The sideview mirror reminds me that what is past is closer than what I think, but wisdom tells me I need to be looking forward. 

Lent isn’t about ashes and penitence. It’s about adjusting our focus. Too often we look at the past, and forget we cannot change it. We may wish we had done some things differently. We may regret some poor decisions, but there’s also a lot to celebrate. Each day is built upon a foundation of what came before it. We live; we learn, we adjust, adapt, and overcome. That’s all positive no matter how you cut it!

All calendars are arbitrary; time is a human invention. While we may use words to describe our lives in terms of past, present, and future, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months and seasons, the only real time we have is now. “Now is the day of salvation,” says the Bible. God’s time is always “now” time. The biblical word is Kairos.

Were you bad yesterday? That’s OK. Now you’re clean. Will you make mistakes or do bad things tomorrow? I hope not, but that’s OK because now you’re clean. For God, it is always now, and for God, we always live in the now. Even when you put your paper down and think about what I just said, you’ll be thinking about that now, not before, and not later – now.

It doesn’t matter whether I am in the tool box or in the junk drawer, I am here now when needed. I am ready now, when needed. The tulips aren’t early. They’re poking their stems and leaves out now, and when the time comes, they’ll blossom and bloom just as they always have – in the fullness of time – Kairos.

I think I’m finally beginning to figure out that God isn’t like the objects in my sideview mirror. God isn’t near; God is now, and that’s an important distinction for me to remember here in this, our valley.

Keith Axberg writes on matters concerning life and faith. Author of: Who the Blazes is Jesus? Good News for a Vulgar World (available through Amazon in Print and e-book)