HOW BEAUTIFUL...

Yes, how beautiful, the first roses of spring in my yard. Each a unique creation, with delicately painted petals that display water droplets like diamonds.

I guess I'm in a poetic mood this morning, surveying the flowers and grass, noticing the gray sky will probably provide the “watering” today instead of my yard hoses. I've lived or worked earlier in life in what would be called the “concrete jungles”--the packed together office buildings, crowded sidewalks and congested, grimy streets. Now, I'm grateful for dirt and grass...and flowers.

It's not perfect. Vermin—rats--have dug under my house and I'm diligently trying to get rid of them. Yes, it was unnerving to realize this—when I heard “skittering” in the hall ceiling and then a stampede up the wall between the bathroom tub and kitchen sink. The battle of “bad bait” began. It seems to be working.

For all the decades I've lived in this small city, this is my first big experience with the “yucks” of rodents. At one time, there was a huge vacant lot behind my home. No doubt “critters” abundantly homesteaded there. Our cat nabbed a few! Then the land was bulldozed to put in stacks of townhouses. Guess where the disturbed vermin migrated.....

Yes, I sense a lesson in this. How we want our lives perfect, free of care and danger that “chew” at our well-being and leave emotional debris behind. But we live in a word tainted by sin and people who chew at what we value: our “person-hood” and self esteem, our safety, our hope. We want full “eradication” of such spiritual enemies. It's in the Divine Plan—but not yet. Only in the perfect spiritual timeline when Jesus returns to reign.

From time to time, science and photography provide us with breathtaking photos of our home planet, like these: photos of earth from space - Search Such views were unimaginable to people among whom Jesus lived during His earth-time, eking out a living in a mostly-barren landscape.

Our globe still has places where few can live: deserts, dangerous swamps, and places destroyed by war.

But we still have places where we can plant beauty. Not just flowers and crops (ever marveled at the wind pushing waves across a field of grain?), but the everyday living of kind words and actions. Refusing to let the “vermin” of ill will or unrealistic expectations spoil the possibility of peace and harmony. And then—how beautiful, the family of God.

Listen to Twila Paris sing “How Beautiful” here in a 2011 recording (skip through the first unrelated ads):

Bing Videos

BYOODE-FUL

I'm blessed to be a grandma of four, three boys (my son's) and one girl (my daughter's). The grandboys are in town, so often visit. But the granddaughter, Eleanor, lives four hours' drive away and I don't see her often. Yet she touches my Nana's heart with her drawings and first-grade-prose. Yes, I like hydrangeas, too, Eleanor. I agree: they are a "byoode." I carried a freshly picked hydrangea pompom as a simple, homemade bridal bouquet at my wedding.

Because my husband died just weeks short of our 42^nd anniversary, the wedding memories are especially tender. We were older—34 and 36—and never-married-before when our wedding day came. It was a simple, small ceremony, right down to a home-sewn dress, garden-picked flowers and a potluck reception. A year or so ago, Eleanor's mom posed her holding a “bouquet” of hydrangeas, and I have that photo posted by my kitchen sink. Her recent drawing (with its original spelling—how precious) lifted my heart as I realized this little detail was revived to comfort me. The same for the hydrangea bouquet they left on my table before returning to their home on the other side of the state.

Often when I look at this drawing, now prominently posted in the kitchen, I recall a contemporary Christian song that has come to widespread recognition through singer Twila Paris. She defines “how beautiful” through remembering the earthly ministry of Jesus Christ, and how that has translated through the centuries through those who now call themselves “Christian”--followers of Jesus.

The song's rhymes are simple, but profound. Sacrifice. He paid the price. The singer reminds us of Jesus' tender eyes, hands that healed, and a heart that bled. My prose doesn't do justice to the song. It's best just listened to, maybe sung along in the heart in a quiet and tender time.

Will there be “byoode-ful” hydrangeas in God's Perfect Place, Heaven? Why not? Or why not something even more amazing in the eternal place God is preparing for those who followed Jesus?

Here are two videos (of many on the internet). In the “YouTube” one, the background is a sunset on the sea. In the other (“Bing”), images of an actor playing the role of Christ, serving, and dying on the cross. Keep a tissue handy and consider watching both.

Howbeautiful by Twila Paris (Lyrics) – YouTube

Howbeautiful by Twila Paris (with lyrics) - Bing video

Just beautiful

A continuing series inspired by sights in Kauai, which we visited early this fall on a trip gifted us.
“It’s just beautiful,” I told my husband as we paused by an orchid plant blooming outside the headquarters for the National Tropical Botanical Gardens. On that hot, humid Kauai morning, it beckoned more than a glance with its pure, delicate color and structure.  Later I learned that there are about 20,000 varieties of orchids, of which I’d seen barely a dozen in my life.

Beautiful.  I wonder if, at times, we overuse that word.  A movie star or pageant contestant may be called “beautiful.”  The same for a radiant bride. To some, a spiffed-up classic car can take that adjective. Or a restored mansion, an intricate quilt, Persian rug, or even a smile after the braces come off.  (That last comment comes from a mom who had two kids in orthodontia!)

But a hymn learned in childhood takes me to my favorite use of “beautiful,” the word prominent in the fourth verse:

Fairest Lord Jesus, ruler of all nature, O Thou of God and man the Son!
Thee will I cherish, Thee will I honor, Thou my soul’s glory, joy and crown!

Fair are the meadows, fairer still the woodlands, Robed in the blooming garb of spring;

Jesus is fairer, Jesus shines purer, Who makes the woeful heart to sing.

Fair is the sunshine, fairer still the moonlight, And all the twinkling starry host;

Jesus shines brighter, Jesus shines purer, Than all the angels heaven can boast.

Beautiful Savior! Lord of all nations! Son of God and Son of Man!

Glory and honor, praise, adoration Now and forevermore be Thine!

 The hymn’s origins are sketchy.  Some date it to the 12^th century, saying German Crusaders and their children sang it during the long, weary trek to the Holy Land. Another connects it to a band of persecuted believers, followers of reformer John Hus, who settled in what now Poland during the Reformation era.  It was finally written down and published in the mid 1850s. Nobody knows for sure who later translated it into English.

Its anonymity means more focus on God, not the human messenger, for its memorably-composed message of basking in God’s gifts of beauty, and letting praise replace complaint. 

Beautiful Savior! Sometimes when I walk alone, I go with that “woeful heart” mentioned in the hymn’s second verse.  The things of this life—the troubled people and situations I care about-- weigh me down.  Then God brings my attention to something that’s a part of His creative magnificence, and the truth that, “Jesus is fairer, Jesus shines purer, Who makes the woeful heart to sing.”