life, death, and a very little thing

I've always loved cemeteries. They are beautiful, quiet, profound. I love the way the giant trees stand sentinel over the names of so many people who have lain almost-forgotten by the loud world that is constantly buzzing by - and yet who each shifted the world, even in only the tiniest way, by being part of it for a little while.

Every Memorial Day weekend, I try to spend an hour walking through the cemetery that sits across the road from where I do my grocery shopping every week. It's usually a sunny midday right after I've been to church, and I walk among the headstones with a few other people who have come to pay respects. The flags ripple lightly in the breeze, and the whole expanse of these countless graves is dotted with color - of flowers, of flags, even of balloons. I like to think that today, at least, those who so quietly left this loud world behind are remembered.

Today was not much different. Sunny and warm, with a clear blue sky held up by ancient trees, and that uncanny graveside hush. But this time, I had just come from the hospital - where I met my hours-old niece for the first time.

Life, death.

It makes me feel rather small to reflect on how, minute by minute, new lives are born into the world, while at the very same time other lives are coming to their ends. How fleeting it all looks when I stand under the trees and read the names and dates that quantify countless strangers' momentary earthly lives. And it becomes a lot harder to fret about small, stupid things when faced with the reality of how tiny even the "big" things are, in light of eternity.

Jesus said, "Do not worry about your life, as to what you will eat; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. . . . Which of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life’s span? If then you cannot do even a very little thing, why do you worry about other matters?" (Luke 12:22, 25-26) This whole chapter always hits me hard, but that last question is the most humbling of all: If then you cannot do even a very little thing, why do you worry about other matters?

Can we even imagine having the power to willfully add hours to our lives? Wouldn't having that kind of sovereignty be the pinnacle of human achievement - the elusive Fountain of Youth? And yet Jesus calls this a very little thing.

And to the One who sits on the Throne of eternity, with a view that spans from eternity past to eternity future, of course that's just what it is. A very, very little thing.

Life, death. It is small. We are small.

But lest we get lost in the smallness - lest this reminder of the ever-cycling nature of life leave us hopeless - Christ gives the greatest reassurance of all, right in the middle of the same passage: "Consider the ravens, for they neither sow nor reap; they have no storeroom nor barn, and yet God feeds them; how much more valuable you are than the birds!" (Luke 12:25)

Life, death. Food, clothing. Ravens, humans. It is all so very small - and yet it is all important in the eyes of God.

His view may span eternity, but His eye watches over the sparrow.

We are small, but we are not too small.

to create again

I picked up my camera today, and for half a moment it felt foreign. I don't know what happened, but somewhere in the darkness of the last few months I forgot that I have a need to create, I forgot that I have a story to tell, I forgot that I love to communicate beauty; I have tried to fake it by following the cues of what "other bloggers" are doing, but when the sun came up today it finally hit me that I'm not Other Blogger #10299 - I'm me.

And I have a story that's just mine.

I heard someone ask recently: "What would you do (in any area of life) if you weren't influenced by what other people are doing?"

What would I write if it didn't have to have a click-worthy title? What would I say to you if it was the only chance I had to speak the truth? What story would I tell with my life if I was focused only on what eternally matters?

For the last five months I've rigidly posted here every Monday of every week - the first time in over 8 years of blogging that I've ever given myself a true writing structure. And I'm glad, because lost in the dark and afraid, I'm not sure I would have written anything at all otherwise.

But there are times for rigidity and times for flux. There are times to teach and times to learn. I've shared my thoughts in an instructive way and now, I think, I'd like to be constructive for a little while. I'd like to create again.

And I invite you along, if you like.

These few pictures that I'm sharing today are a glimpse into a muggy May morning with my sister, three days before she turned thirteen. We rode the horses in the big round field and then washed their tails with strawberries-and-cream scented conditioner that takes me back to horse-baths of summers gone by. It took ages to work out the tangles, and I doubt they properly appreciated our braiding skills, but there's something good about slow, patient work and being near a big, breathing thing.