Halfway There

I am weary. Dead-dog, bone-weary tired. Putting that thought on paper and articulating it “out loud” seems only to increase my weariness.

I have been so busy lately focusing on the lives of others that it has been conveniently easy to overlook that I have been overlooking myself. But my world of duties has quieted overnight. That months’ long do-to list is done. And now I am left with me.

I have been looking so forward to this day; to the time when I could focus on my creative pursuits and my future. Engines revved and ready to go. What I didn’t plan on was the silence, the emptiness, the stillness. I stand at the door and look around and see a vast vastness.

Is the direction I’m heading the correct course? I think so but I keep travelling it and seem to be getting nowhere fast. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know which way to turn. But I know I can’t stop. This is exhausting. And I don’t have the energy to do whatever it is I am supposed to do. I need some help here.

One of my favorite movies is Where the Red Fern Grows from 1974. In it a young boy Billy saves up his money for two years and buys 2 coon-hounds. He loves these hounds. And these hounds love him and each other. He trains them from pups to track and “tree” raccoons.

One night Billy goes out hunting with his dogs – Old Dan and Little Ann. The dogs pick up the scent of a ‘coon and track it all throughout the woods until they “tree” it in the tallest sycamore tree in the woods. The only way for Billy to get the ‘coon is to chop the giant tree down.

It takes young Billy two days to chop down the tree with his ax. His family comes looking for him in the woods thinking something has happened to him. The family tries to get him to give-up, to find a smaller tree to cut down. He says “no.” His father offers to help him chop but he says “no.” He made a promise to his dogs that if they tree’d a ‘coon he would chop the tree down and that is exactly what he is going to do even if it takes him a year.

Billy is exhausted. Two days of chopping have him worn-out and bone-dead tired. The tree has a big chunk missing and it will eventually die and fall from the wound but it is clear that the tree is far from falling anytime soon. The ‘coon is safe.

Then Billy has a chat with God. He recalls something his Grandpa told him when he was working hard to save his money for two years to buy the dogs. That if Billy did what he could do, God would meet him halfway and do the rest.

Billy tells God that he has done his best. He has chopped as much as he can. He has kept his promise to his dogs. He has met God halfway. But he needs God’s help to bring the tree down; he cannot do it on his own. Billy needs God to meet him halfway.

Then suddenly a big wind stirs up. The tall sycamore starts waving in the wind and finally falls down, killing the ‘coon. The first thing Billy did when he got home with his prize and was asked how he did it was tell his Grandpa that he met God halfway.

Am I there? Have I tree’d my ‘coon? Have I chopped my tree halfway? I don’t know. I surely feel as though I have. I’m tired enough to have chopped a forest of trees. But as I stand here waiting to find out I will continue to chop. Like Billy, I will keep chopping even if it takes me a year. Through the weariness, through the tiredness and vast stillness I will chop.

Because one day God will meet me halfway and His wind will blow for me.

~

Awakening

I’m not much of a gardener. Plants do not last long in my care. My yard, small as it is, is a hodge-podge of errant weeds, patchy grass and hearty greenery that thrives on in spite of my best efforts to ignore it into oblivion.

Every so often I forget to remember my lack of Mr. Green Jeans’s talent and take a field trip to the local nursery. I always buy way too much more than I have the ability, strength or knowledge how to plant and care for. It’s like what happens when I go the cafeteria; I see all that delicious food. It looks so pretty I order a little bit of each dish. I’ll never eat it all – what was my stomach thinking?

Same deal at the nursery. My eyes glaze at the sight of all those lustrous flowers and bedding plants. The thought of my yard as only Martha Stewart could do it is too over powering. Soon I’m up to my arm pits in soil, flowers and fresh shrubbery – which will all die a slow and unceremonious death in the weeks to come despite my best efforts to keep it all alive.

This is back breaking work – no wonder I only do it during leap years, and happily 2009 is not a leap year. I love all that beauty but I want instant gratification. Patience is required for a gardener and that I have on short supply most days.

My paternal grandmother, from whom I received my middle name, was a fierce gardener. My grandparents lived on seven wooded acres in the heart of the city and she diligently maintained the gardens of about half of them - herself, with just one wonderful helper. I cannot begin to tell you the work that was.

Every fall she planted thousands of tulip bulbs all over the property. Tulips are my favorite. They are so delicate and so beautiful. And they require the utmost skill and dedication to grow.

My grandmother would gather her bulbs months in advance of planting and store them in a refrigerator. At just the right day and time in autumn before the first frost she would plant them. And planting the little brown rock like thing is not easy. The hole has to be dug just so deep, add at little fertilizer, cover with good soil, water and wait for spring. This is back-breaking work when you are planting thousands.

But the result was amazing. Each spring my grandparents’ backyard was a showplace. Tulips of all colors and variety bursting from everywhere. Acres of them – around trees, down in ravines, in every bed and along every walkway. I can’t see one today without thinking of her – and smiling.

I tried it once – planting tulip bulbs. Disaster. About 17 years ago (the shame has prevented me from trying again) I wanted that same look and feel in the spring at my home so I asked her advice and set about my task. I bought the bulbs early – 100 bulbs to be exact. I stored them in the fridge for the requisite amount of time. I prepared my bed and soil. I dug my holes and put in nitrogen-rich fertilizer. Covered them and watered them well and cared for them all autumn and winter long.

I could not wait for Spring and the first signs of the tell-tale green shoots sprouting forth from the bed signaling the tulips were awakening. But something was wrong. Spring arrived with no tell-tale green shoots. Weeks went by and still no signs of life from the bed. Neighbor’s tulips were blooming but mine were still in hibernation.

Finally, life! One yellow tulip sprouted in the dead-center of the bed. One. Out of 100 bulbs planted, one awakened and became a tulip. Crest-fallen I dug up its sister bulbs to see the problem. It appears that I had planted the other 99 upside down. Several showed signs of life – little green shoots came out but could not make the 180-degree turn north towards the sky. Tulip bulbs are indeed expert territory.

That’s the thing I find so amazing about them. Hold one in your hands. It looks like nothing special. Just this little brown lump. It looks dead. And in fact, it is dead or rather it is dormant with its life waiting to be released. Who would ever think by looking at it that if given just the right amount of preparation, care, attention, patience and love by an expert gardener that an odd looking little nothing could grow into the most beautiful thing in the world in a matter of months?

We can learn a lot from a tulip bulb, especially at Easter. The Master Gardener has taken what was dead and made it alive again. And I think it is not coincidence that we celebrate Jesus awakening and re-birth in Spring.

What God does for the tulip bulb and what He did for His son Jesus He does for each and every one of us. We may look like a little brown lump on the outside but God sees the beautiful tulip we are on the inside.

He makes us alive again. He makes us beautiful.

Happy Easter and may God Bless you and your family.

~

The Postcard

It all began so innocuously. I was just going through the mail. I almost didn’t read it, it looked like junk mail. It was a little white postcard no bigger than a 3x5 card. No fancy writing. No four-color graphics. But read it I did and things have never been the same.

We all have dreams and desires for our lives. We make plans when we are young and pursue certain paths that we think will get us to where our passion tells us we have to be. But like life does for most the path diverges, distractions come, reality sets in and passion gets put in a box, on top of a shelf, in the back of a closet.

I was blessed enough to pursue my passion in college and then continue the exploration of my dream after graduation. My path even took me out of my home town and to Tinseltown where I was going to set the world on fire. My life on the dream scale was squarely a 7-8.

Soon enough reality, distractions and diverges beset me. I still wanted my dreams to come true but they were not as visible as they once were. There was too much noise, too much confusion, chaos, and fear. Always that dreaded fear was tapping on my shoulder.

The thing about walking on our passionate path as opposed to the average, everyday path is that the passionate path cannot be walked alone. It is too fraught with danger. There are those who do not want us to live passionate lives and will throw all the fear, insecurity, guilt, shame, anxiety, you name it at us to stop us. Because with passion comes joy.

I was trying to live passionately but I was alone. And it was not working. So after a couple of years I decided I had a new dream and passion and I moved home. I packed up the old dreams and put them in that box, on the shelf, in the back of my closet. I never thought of them again. And I was fine with that - for the next 12 years. Really I was.

Or so I thought.

Here’s the thing about our dreams. We don’t put them in our hearts. They do not originate in us. They are created by God. And because that is so, dreams will not die no matter how much we try to ignore them, bury them, replace them, drown them or do any other of the myriad things we conjure up to kill them.

In the intervening 12 years God got a hold of me in a deeper way than He ever had before. It started slowly. He slipped in when I was looking the other way but once He was in my heart He was not giving up His ground and He was staking claim to more. I was no longer alone. Whatever path I walk for the rest of my life God will be with me. And that makes all the difference.

Apparently, during the summer of 2007 God decided that I had forgotten about that box in my closet long enough. It was time for a nudge. The postcard went to my parents’ house. It didn’t even come to mine. They were out of town I and was sorting their mail, otherwise they would have thrown it out with the junk mail. God is clever.

The card was an invitation to a meeting from an actor’s union I belong to but had long since put my membership on hold. I no longer received correspondence from them. Why this? Why now? God says my heart was strong enough now.

In the past, I would never have gone to the meeting - too insecure to walk into a meeting where everyone knew everyone and I knew no one. So, I put the postcard aside and went about my day. But I couldn’t. That card kept nudging me from my purse. That’s the thing about God; He’s rather relentless when He wants to be. The meeting did sound interesting. It was during my lunch hour. Why not just check it out? What could it hurt? I might meet some interesting people.

Boom. Box off shelf, out of closet, lid blown off and passion all over my heart. I had forgotten what true passion feels like. No matter where my life takes me I will never be able to get this back into a box again.

I walked into that meeting in the summer of 2007 and I have not missed one since. They embraced me, I embraced them and my path has changed forever. I made more money in 2008 following my first passion than I did my replacement passion. (I hope to write that sentence every year for the rest of my life.)

What’s the difference this time? I did not walk into that meeting alone. Now make no mistake, attempts to thwart me are being made. There are evil-doers (sorry about the Bush reference) at every turn trying to fill me with fear, insecurity, etc. But things are different as I pursue my dream this time. I am not walking my passionate path alone.

We are built to live with passion and pursue our dreams. God does not gives us dreams to have us ignore them. They are given to us for His glory. He wants us to live with a passionate heart for Him. The heart is a muscle for a reason and it needs to be vigorously exercised. What is God nudging you about?

Check your mail carefully. You never know what your heart might find.

~