Color Culture

Fairly soon after we moved here, I planted lots of tulips and daffodils out on the berm.  Although the berm often looks more like a weed garden than anything else, the tulips show up every spring, plugging away with steadfastness of spirit and a splash of color, undeterred by their ugly neighbors.   (I feel a blog post about weeds coming up.)   Incredibly, this is the first year that I cut some and brought them in to add color culture to our kitchen.  After putting them into the vase, I could hardly take my eyes off of them, which naturally  led to lots of photos, trying to capture in permanence what I see only temporarily.   I don't know about you, but beauty just makes me ache sometimes.  It's a good sort of aching, but an aching nevertheless.   This isn't a world that just came along by accident and stumbled into beauty.   I used to think that -- bought the whole evolution package and never thought to question it.  I mean, they taught it in the schools, it must be true, right?  I took a human physiology class in college and the doubts started creeping in...how it is possible that the evolutionary process made all of these complex systems that work together so harmoniously?  Think about it.

Meanwhile, back at the tulip vase I decided to try an experiment with black cloth which I had learned about in the first photography books that I bought, a trilogy by Scott Kelby (The Digital Photography Books 1, 2 and 3).  First of all, if you enjoy photography and haven't read Kelby's books, I recommend them, especially if you like to laugh.  I'm sorry I don't have a hyperlink to Scott's website here, but I'd have to ask my daughter (again) how to do it and it's too humiliating.  Anyway, Kelby recommended black velour cloth as a background, but I ended up having to get black felt.  Don't tell me if it's obvious that it's only cheap felt in the background - I'm pretty sure I won't believe you.  I actually used two tricks of Scott's on this one: the black cloth and the spray bottle to create a dewy look.  I tell you that in the interest of full disclosure and with the hopes that you are not saddened by having to discard your illusions that I cut these in the early morning dew.




I call this one Contemplation of Setting Sun Shining and Sparkling on the Translucent Petals of Apricot-Colored Tulips and their Leaves.  Just kidding.

O LORD, how manifold are your works! 

in wisdom have you made them all: 

the earth is full of your riches.

Psalm 104:24

Wishful Dreaming

Dreams were a frequent mode of divine messages in the Bible, which has always fascinated me, particularly because most of my dreams have a sort of "Dr. Seuss meets Salvador Dali" quality to them.  Here's a sample:  a friend was in trouble; suddenly he became a raw hamburger patty and I carried him around in my apron pocket to keep him safe.  Somehow I doubt that there's any sort of grand spiritual message in there.   When I was very young, I used to try to program my dreams.  In an avant garde pseudo-science kind of way, I thought perhaps that if I thought REALLY HARD about circuses (for example) before going to sleep, this would naturally produce dreams about circuses.  It never worked.

Two nights ago, my sister appeared in a dream.  After she died in 1987, dream appearances were common, but they come much less frequently now.  Less than a year after she died, I saw her (as it were) walking across the green grass on the corner of our church property.  She was radiant with health and possessed an other-worldly loveliness.  I ran to her and hugged her - so happy!  She remained in my arms for only a moment and then backed away.  "Can't you stay?"  I pleaded.  She shook her head, smiled, and left.   Two nights ago, I saw her again.  She looked just like I remember her, permanently frozen at 33 years of age (and yet always older than me, though I am now 53).   Again, I hugged her.  I kissed her cheek and said, "I love you."  And then she was gone.  I do miss her...

God is done with special revelation - it's all in His Book -  so I'm not going to wake up some day and say, "The Lord told me to put a raw hamburger patty in my apron pocket!"   However, God is sovereign over all things and this must include our dreams, as random as they sometime seem.  It makes sense to me that He can use our dreams to illumine things for us, using heavenly wisdom to weave something meaningful into the strange flotsam and jetsam of our subconscious.   So I don't immediately discard my dreams as mental rubbish, but neither do I count them as a promise of some sort of future reality.  Like everything else they must be examined in the light of Scripture.   God holds all the deep and secret things in His hand.

"He reveals deep and secret things; 

He knows what is in the darkness, and light dwells with Him.

Daniel 2:22

Conversion

I came to it late in life - so many years wasted!  And I was amazed that something so wonderful could have been completely distasteful to me before.  I am, of course, speaking of my conversion to asparagus, which happened in my 50th year.  It actually began some years earlier when my oldest son (then 11 or 12) asked for asparagus to be part of his birthday meal.   I tried in vain to talk him out of it.  "Pete, it's HORRIBLE stuff!  It always made me gag when I was growing up.  Seriously, you'll hate it and you definitely don't want to have it with your birthday meal."   I really thought I was doing him a favor, and would have done a similar kindness if he'd asked for (shudder) lima beans.  However, the laddie insisted and I, having always granted the birthday meal requests, gave in with a sort of "you'll be sorry" kind of sigh.  I bought fresh asparagus, steamed it, buttered and salted it and, just to show my exalted state of maturity, tried it too.  Hmm...not bad.  In fact, it wasn't nearly as disgusting as I remembered.  I assumed it was a fluke and let it go for 8 or so  more years, at which point the lingering memory prompted me to agree to grow it in our back yard.  After tasting the first harvest, the conversion was complete.  Now I await the first appearance of asparagus spears each spring with joyful anticipation and haven't been disappointed yet.  I'm always ready to extol its goodness (try it!  what have you got to lose?).

And so it is with Jesus.  I came to Him late, as well - in my 25th year.   Throughout most of my growing years I found Jesus distasteful.  I didn't even want to say His name.  The concept of sin was unpalatable.  Don't make me eat that stuff!  Then one day, like a fresh breeze blowing, the thought occurred to me "What if it's all true?  What if there is a God who made the world, who made me?  What if Jesus really was who He said He was?"  If you knew the state of my heart, you'd know without a doubt that a breeze of that nature did not originate from within - it was Holy Spirit driven, all the way.  Still, I tarried and fussed over all sorts of objections - things that seem silly in retrospect.   And what's all this about sin?  Really?  Not me - I certainly was a very nice, kind and altogether good sort of person.  I'm not saying I lived in a continual state of happiness and peace, but I just didn't think the charges fit.  I blush to think about that first prayer in which I challenged God: "Okay, if I've sinned, you'll have to show it to me - I just don't see it."

I'm not sure I've ever since had a prayer that was so swiftly and penetratingly answered.

Over the next 24 hours I saw it all, the soul full of deceit, selfishness and pride, packed in a general mud sauce.  Yuck.  That fresh breeze blew up into a massive humbling whirlwind.   But after all my tarrying, there was grace, mercy and forgiveness, and when I said yes to Jesus, an unquenchable joy.  He has never disappointed me and I will forever extol His goodness.

O taste and see that the Lord is good

Psalm 34:8