Chicago - Aubrey Scheffey
I should go on more walks. Not for the fist-pumping virtuous reasons I usually think of regarding Regular Exercise, but because today I saw a bluebell growing amid the trash of a railway. And because I had a ways yet to go and nothing else to bother me, I got to thinking about that bluebell and what it means regarding the world we live in.
Does the bluebell grow from pride? Does it select a trashy heap for a stark contrast, better showcasing its delicate nape and unusual color? Certainly not. Bluebells fall like rain, indescriminate but nevertheless well-crafted.
Why is there evil in the world? Why did God harden Pharoah’s heart when Moses asked for his people to be freed? Why would a diety incarnate only to let himself be slaughtered? These questions always tickle and trip along my mind, even if all I am doing is trying to admire the landscape.
A recent verse has caught in my throat, the hard-pill casing refusing to relent and be swallowed. If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? It is easy to love those who are loveable. It is easy to admire a bluebell, a first hint of spring in a grubby world. More bluebells would really improve that curb, make it easy on the eyes and pleasant for other walkers. Let us carpet the land in bluebells.
I love bluebells, but they do not challenge me. They ask only to be admired and pollinated. It was not the pretty violet color that rattled my brain, but the trash. The empty cartons of high fructose corn syrup and GMO-riddled Monsanto food stuffs. The cheap, crushed cans and sneaky broken beer bottles. This was no place for a flower to bloom.
Often I prefer to think on the God with hen’s wings who cradles me near her and sighs along my skin. I like the God who makes bluebells blue and brains complicated, who plays with creation and strings music through the heavens. But this is an easy God to love.
Nestled beneath her wings, I watch as my God fails to jam the gun brought to a kindergarten class. I watch Her trace the curve of apathetic shoulders when rapists are painted as Rockwellian youth tempted by drunken sluts. She stares me right in the eye and hardens Pharoah’s heart so that the Jews will remain slaves until Egyptian children are massacred.
Perhaps the bluebell grows for the pleasure of the trash. It brings fragrance and beauty to a ditch of forgotten refuse and discarded indulgences. It nods a hopeful nod and then dessicates and dies. I do not understand my God. I do not understand why bluebells and trash are thrust together in clamor and confusion. I do not understand, but I am grateful for the challenge and for a God larger than my own limited love.
