BRIEF BLOOMERS

Our extended family has a decades-old tradition of hunting for spring's first buttercup. It requires a keen sense of “when” and usually several trips to higher elevations where the dainty wildflowers start poking through. This year, “Buttercup Day” came later than usual in late March. But oh—the smile on my husband's face when he caught the fleeting hue of yellow along the roadside.

Sometimes my mind makes strange (but reasonable) connections—and this time it was an old quote attributed to C.T. Studd (1860-1931), a cricket-player from England who gave up wealth and comfort and went to the mission field, serving in India, Sudan, and Congo. The quote: “Only one life, twill soon be past; only what's done for Christ will last.”

Maybe the pandemic has me thinking more about what will be accomplished at my life's end. Maybe it's also my prayers for people I care about who struggle spiritually. In going through paper piles lately (aren't most people doing that these days?) I came across an article I'd saved from the alumni magazine of Wheaton College, where I earned my master's degree. Its alumni legacy includes “wholehearted” folks like missionary martyr Jim Elliot and evangelist Billy Graham. Plus—lots of other “regular people” (like me) who studied their hearts out in pursuing what they believed to be part of God's path for their lives.

This article featured a young woman named Anna O'Connor, who died at 26 in 2012 after struggling nine years with a rare form of cancer called neuroblastoma. Doctors at first gave her a year to live, but she and her family fought on. Besides finishing her master's in psychology in 2011 at Wheaton, the article said, “in spite of her illness, and because of it, Anna established a nonprofit organization , hosted a music festival....raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for cancer research, and counseled and comforted many.”

Speaking in chapel three years before she died, Anna encouraged students not to worry so much about grades or their life's accomplishments, but rather, “My hope is that you will learn what it means to be fully alive to the presence of God.” Some 1,700 people attended her 2012 memorial service in the college chapel.*

Legacy. Like those elusive buttercups, bright but brief reminders of God's calling and mandate regarding our lives that will “soon be past." It comes down to daily choices. Questions like, “Will this activity enrich my life and bring honor to Jesus? Am I serving like Jesus? Am I seeking the best in others and building them up?”

It's said that buttercups were once known in Europe as “King's Cups” because of how they resembled a crown. I certainly see the analogy there, remembering Studd's challenge: “Only what's done for Christ [the King] will last.”

*Read the original article about her starting at page 23 at this web page: autumn2012.pdf (wheaton.edu)

Divine fingerprints



One of last year's buttercup spots; the one
mentioned in this blog far surpassed this.

 Sometimes the love of God is very quiet, sent via sight, hearing, smell, taste, or touch. I think about that every spring as we watch for the first buttercup blooms. My late mother-in-law grew up in a hilly rural area where the tiny yellow blooms proliferate. She led a type of family competition to see who could find the first buttercup of spring. As she aged and was moved into town, we made sure the first buttercups were delivered to her. Even as dementia set in, the tiny blooms brought a twinkle to her eyes. But one sunny, early spring day, just a year and a half before her death, her son (my husband) wheeled her out to the car and settled her in for drive to the orchard hills of her childhood roots. Rounding one corner, they came upon a whole carpet of yellow blooms, like a hint of Heaven’s streets of gold.

“It was like a gift from God,” my husband recalled. “I had never seen such a display.”

I thought of that incident in reading Klaus Issler’s book, Living into the Life of Jesus (IVP, 2012, p. 102). In writing about how we respond to God, he encouraged being more attentive to “God’s love initiatives” toward us. These might include “sunshine that warms me in a special moment, the cheerful sound of birds singing in the morning when I need that encouragement, a beautiful sunset that overwhelms me, a specific word from a friend that goes deep and a hug from a friend that puts flesh on love.”

He said it’s like these lines from “Aurora Leigh” by Elizabeth Browning (1806-1861):
Earth’s crammed with heaven, And every common bush afire with God:
But only he who sees, takes off his shoes, The rest sit round it, and pluck blackberries.

Besides what’s taken in through our senses, God can speak through circumstances and relationships. Issler sensed God’s love initiatives, for example, in a friend who moved him from being a hand-shaker to a hugger. Another was in spending time with his toddler granddaughter.

Jesus often challenged His listeners, “He who has ears, let him hear.” It’s not just our ears that teach. All the senses, even that “extra sense,” can lead us to realize, “God passed by here.” It can even happen on a spring-warmed patch of soil, pushing out a golden carpet with a whispered, “I did this to bring you My pleasure.”

The Buttercup Race

Crocus in our front yard (photo, above) remind us that spring is coming. But for our family, there's something more important in heralding spring.....

It wasn’t hearing again the tsk-shrrrrr of the red-winged blackbirds on a walk last week on our local nature trail. Nor seeing the first crocus open. Not even realizing it was warm enough for a light jacket instead of the ski coat.

The true test of spring here was going on the traditional family covert search for the first buttercup of the spring. Last Thursday, I’d taken a final, weary bite of dinner leftovers when my husband spoke the magic words: “I have that feeling that one is waiting for us.”

“Give me ten minutes to wash dishes,” I pleaded as he hunted for a trowel and empty margarine containers. Soon we were headed to his secret location: a hillside in cherry country that gets most of the day’s sun.

In a tradition that may stretch back a couple generations, the Zorneses have tried to outdo each other in finding spring’s first buttercup. In recent years, my husband has won the race. One year, however, his homebound mother had friends aka “spring spies” who dug and delivered one to her before her son (my husband) got out for his own search.

The candidate we found had a tight-fisted bloom, but a day in window sun coaxed out the yellow. He made that sneaky call to his older sister, the other “race” participant (now that their mom has died), and left this message: “I want you to know that there’s something on our table.”

When the phone rang about twenty minutes later, I risked answering it, “Buttercup Headquarters!” (Whew, it was his sister!)

Traditions. They mattered to Tevye, the milkman father-of-daughters in “Fiddler on the Roof.” And they’re part of what makes family, “family.”

Besides the buttercups, we’ve had a candle-studded watermelon in lieu of a cake for my husband’s birthday. That began in his boyhood, when his June birthday usually coincided with the family’s involvement in church camps. Not able to bake, his mom substituted his favorite summer food, melon, for the candle-holder.

Other Zornes family traditions: the red “You Are Special” plate for birthdays and other honors. Ice cream bars after school concerts. Driving to a hillside neighborhood of half-million-dollar homes for a million-dollar view of July 4 fireworks (please pass the popcorn to the back seat).

Spring also means (ugh) rose pruning time, but I’ll save comments on that for next time.