Blessings Fell Like Jewels

Last week when I was without a camera, Diana stopped me as we passed each other on our daily walk. "You've got to come see the phlox! They are at their prime," she said enthusiastically.

All week I prayed that the phlox would hold until the UPS man came with my new camera.  He came late last Friday afternoon while I was in the basement throwing a load of clothes into the wash.  I made it back upstairs just in time to see the tail lights of his van pulling away. He left a note saying someone had to sign for the package before it could be delivered.

So I grabbed my car keys. Driving like a maniac, I chased after him. I couldn't go one more minute without the camera. Luckily he stopped just up the street and didn't seem too bothered by the wild-eyed woman chasing him waving the little sticky note.  "You've got my camera!" I demanded.

I did come to my senses when he kindly handed the package over. I thanked him profusely, and the fates for making him stop just up the block, and sympathized with him about the heat. Heat is the enemy of UPS drivers an flowers of all kinds.  It can zoom them through their short-enough life span, the flowers that is, I haven't made a study of the life span of UPS drivers.

The heat is gone this week.  Diana's phlox lived long enough for me to capture them in all their glory.

Diana's garden is a delight

and so is she!

Diana, the phlox, the UPS man, they all conspired together to make this moment possible. Life is a roller-coaster ride isn't it?  I'm oft tempted, in the middle of the ride, to worry that the fun's almost over.

I woke this morning to mist swirling outside. The tennis boys didn't need me to fill in so  I spent the dawn with a cup of coffee writing in my journal.

Fog and mist outside, the windows open to summer's wet smack. Crickets competed with the steady drum of the fan. A perfect summer morning.

After breakfast I took a stroll through the mists. It was quiet, the cicadas who have been almost deafening at night hadn't started up their chorus yet. As I walked, appreciating the early summer morning warm, but not hot; I casually glanced down at the sidewalk to see it littered with cicada carcasses. I stopped, looking behind me and then forward.  Dead cicadas everywhere.

I picked up three of the most intact ones.

Some looked to have died violent deaths at the hands of birds. I gingerly carried the three in my hands planning to bring them home to marvel at their hideous beauty.

The dead cicadas reminded me of something I'd read about dying in Annie Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.  We have a choice when we face death between "please" and "thank you". How I hope I say "thank you" rather than pleading for more time, more life, more, more, more. What a blessing instead to feel filled up.

This focus on death on such a lovely, misty morning feels a little weird and morbid. But here death is, crunching under my feet.  I've been walking over these dead cicadas for a quarter of a mile and just now, suddenly, I'm noticing. Can I walk with grace and humility carefully cradling these three dead cicadas?

Can I see the fragility of life, the heartbreak of endings and instead of weeping, rejoice?

The phlox are in season, alive, blooming.  The cicadas, some of them anyway, are still giving full-throated cries to summer and passion. Each has a season. Each fades, passes.

Each season I think I love best, but somewhere in the heart of it, I see the beginning of it's end.

The butternut at the end of Marijo's drive is dropping yellow leaves on the lawn and I know, soon, fall's cooling breezes will come. Can I use these dropping leaves to practice compassion and gratitude?

Thank you for summer, thank you for life, thank you for the call of the cicada and the bloom of the phlox.

Or do I give in to my more pessimistic nature and mourn the end of summer prematurely.  Wanting more, more, more? Please, please, please?

Back home I notice spider webs holding rain drops like jewels.  Such magnificent, fragile beauty. I hold my breath, stunned at the grandeur and yet routine way God creates beauty and then snuffs it out. In just a little while, the sun will come out and dry up this pretty scene. Poof, it was and will no longer be.

Poof I'm here. And then again, poof and I will no longer be. But while I'm here, I'll catch this little moment of God's extravagance.  I'll remind myself to be on the lookout each passing moment for God's divine jewels. Cradling my dead cicadas, marveling at the beauty all around. Thank you, thank you, thank you.