I never thought I be reassured by lilies, until…
The morning of July 10 my husband and I drove home from spending a weekend in the Adirondacks. The skies were ominous, the weather forecast dire, but the rain hadn’t yet begun to fall. Even so, we knew that some roads were already closed. But from what we could see, none of the roads we planned to travel had been affected by the worsening storm.
So, we were surprised when a little more than halfway home, we came to the place where one of the roads we depended on was closed. We had really believed that we were going to make it all the way home on the route we normally traveled. Now we had no choice but to take an alternate route, and then an alternate to the alternate.
Though the storm never stopped us completely, it certainly impeded progress in some places. Defying the insistence of our GPS, we traveled north to go east, sometimes through ponding water, veering away from road shoulders beginning to collapse into rivers and streams below, until we could get on the interstate. Our two-hour trip took nearly four hours.
Little did we know just how were lucky we were.
Once we were home, we learned that the storm was essentially chasing us down the highway, destroying everything in its path. Safely ensconced in our house on the hill, we were shocked to learn what so many others were experiencing. Homes were flooded. Others were broken and washed away. Whole businesses were wiped out in the space of a couple of hours. Many were isolated because roads and bridges had washed away.
And when the worst had finally passed, and people had just begun to survey the damage and clean things up, another storm hit. And then another.
It seems like the storms just keep coming, further injuring a scarred landscape, upending lives and livelihoods.
Yet, even in the midst of this devastation and suffering, there are things that are surprisingly untouched.
The morning after the first storm I began to notice an almost surreal level of normal activity all around me. As dawn broke, the birds sang as they always do. Chipmunks emerged from under the woodpile and scampered across the lawn. Hummingbirds let me know that their feeder was empty.
And when the sun reached its zenith, the lilies were fully opened, announcing that all was well and as it should be in their little corner of the universe.
Observing the birds and animals going about their daily business, along with lilies doing exactly what I’d come to expect them to do this time of year, gave me the gift of perspective. While I recognized that storm clean up and damage repair was going to take days and months it was gratifying to know that there are ways that life goes on.
In this summer of storms, wildfires, and general upheaval, it’s been reassuring to know that some normal things are still happening.
My experience that morning brought to mind the words of Jesus, the teacher of my faith tradition, who pointed to the natural world when he instructed his followers not to be anxious – even in the worst situations. The birds of the air, the lilies of the field maintain their natural rhythms through the worst of times. Learn from them, he said.
In his poem “The Peace of Wild Things,” Wendell Berry describes drawing courage from the natural world when all else seems to be going wrong. He writes,
“I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief…”
That gives me hope that, even in the midst of the mess and devastating loss, by going about our work here and now – doing what needs to be done in this moment – we’ll foster resilience and find a way forward.