It is a humid summer day and I am on my way to visit my Dad. He lives in an apartment complex where people stick miniature flamingoes and spinning windstars in their planters. A few kids splash around the community pool in floaties and ruffly swim suits, as their parents turn up the mariachi station on a handheld radio. Approaching his patio steps, I notice how much his once modest array of plants has sprawled into a lavishly overgrown garden. I enter the antechamber of hanging plants and wild shoots and part a ripened curtain of tomato vines that dangles from the surrounding lattice. The amount of green here is astounding. It catches my eye from all different angles and when it meets the light, bursts into the color it was destined for.
I remember when my Dad first began planting his patio garden. It started out looking very potted and contained- a rose bush in the corner, a few spongy leaves, and the exotic stalks I would have to ask him to name. But now all that has changed. It is robust and abundant and wild- much like the love I desire with my Creator.
As I wind deeper into his patio jungle, I hear little drops of water trickle down from the hanging plants. My dad must have watered them recently and now they are making a sun shower out of the surrounding leaf spickets.
There is just enough beauty and simplicity in this world to calm my anxious mind and allow me to seep into the present. I spend a lot of time trying to be present to Presence, to people, passing events, or the moment before me. But more often then not I experience a restlessness that theologians and spiritual writers have been tilling over for centuries. My restlessness is nothing but a vague desire to be somewhere else or doing something that I can never finally name. It is an irritating, senseless distraction to the reality that stands before me. But here, in this enfolding green world of light and water, I am totally at ease. I am alert to all of its sensual wonders, and relaxed enough to remain perfectly attentive to their stillness. And because this spectrum of green is so real, it is easy to surrender to the memory I keep of Eden.
The memory of Eden is nothing other than a pure, original sense of joy that I experience from time to time. It's not like any other sense of passing pleasure, but a deep and abiding knowledge that while I live in an imperfect world, with a clumsy soul and very real disappointments, everything in and around me belongs to something sacred. It's principally an intuition. An intuition that reminds me of where I came from (Eden) and where I am going (God). It grounds, empowers and makes my soul ignite with the color green- or whatever color I am destined for. This is the Original Joy I feel as I move past the plants fiercely pushing through cracked pots; I recall a vision of Eden, alive and well.
Before my visit is over, my Dad offers to cut me some ripe tomatoes from the vine. He grabs a rusted pair of cutting shears and together we part through the knotted swirl of vine and leaves. He snips a branch and five, plump red balls fall into my palm. He snaps one of them off the bundle and dusts it off on his shirt before handing it back to me. I do not hesitate to pop that red ball of organic goodness into my mouth, because I really trust in this earth and the heartiness of its dirt. My mouth teems with juices as I taste the freshness of something purely tomato, and roll little seeds across my tongue. I eat this perfectly picked fruit with the both of us knowing that we were made for communion such as this.
Comments
Post a Comment