Be Still and Know

Lying on the pine covered earth, damp and soft underneath my frame, I run my fingers through the needles and the year’s death now coming to life again. I am taken aback by the mesmerizing beauty of the moment – the light coming through the trees, the rustling of the wind, the new life springing forth at every glance. A tiny mushroom reveals itself as I pull back the layers of texture in my hands. How can a fungus be so beautiful? The smell of the woods is so overwhelming. It is the smell of earth, the stuff I am made of. The stuff I am made of?

How beautiful it is to lie here in my Sunday clothes – not fancy clothes though – just a sundress with tights and a sweater. I’m pushing the season… never been so excited about Spring. My Sunday clothes are kinda simple and I love that… because religion in the Appalachian Mountains did not always allow me this simplicity. Though I love the sweet feminine simplicity, the clothes are not made for hiking, but I am anyway – hiking in my dress and my boots. I take my boots off lying there in the woods and feel the damp coolness underneath my feet through my nyloned toes – this barrier of artificial thinness keeping me from being completely rooted to the ground though my fingers dig through it… falling in love.

The flit of the birds making their Spring home arrests my spirit… or is it merely my soul that is awakened to it? Nevertheless, the holy words rush to my mind… even the sparrow has found a home for herself. Where is that home? Where is Home? In His sanctuary. In the temple of God… yet today… just today – I left the sanctuary of our church where I had went to pray because I could not breathe its carpet, its sheet-rocked walls, and echoing air… I needed nature. I needed new. I needed growth. So I hiked in my Sunday clothes. And I prayed.

The fern, awakening from the death of winter still held itself tight in its perfect design. The old leaves from last year’s growth or maybe from a late frost were hanging on to its outer visage though the inside was peeking new-growth green. The way the leaves laid upon one another, still curled up tightly, needing that curl and that connection to the leaf next to it, reminded me of the intricacy and the intimacy we have with all things – how all things work together – how God places all things and all people in our lives to work together for our good. Thankfulness lifts itself out of a pushed down place and flows over my tongue and I sing of the goodness of God – of the Divine Creator who draws my heart to him through the simplicity of an emerging fern. My song echoes… unfurling as the fern will as she pushes herself upward toward the soon rushing days of light that are even now upon her. She will unfurl into her glory. She will become all that God has created her to be. She will reveal the glory of her perfect design. The fern will glorify God just by being a fern. Are all things that easy?

Reveal the Glory. What about the frailty? Sometimes realized frailty pushes against my Faith and I lose the strength I think I have obtained. Live in the Spirit. Reveal the Glory. Romans 8 pushes into my thoughts. Can there be a revelation of the glory inside or somehow wrapped up in the frailty?

I lie there on the ground, resting so contently in the presence of the moment… just listening for God’s stillness… his Small Voice. I look across the meandering earthy tangle of death and growth that is directly in my line of vision as my head rests on my “Just Be” tote bag and I see at an arm’s distance a leaf… actually it is only the frame of a leaf… the bones of a leaf. I take it in my fingers, careful not to harm it. It is a frail thing… weathered by the past seasons’ harsh blow of ice and wind and rot. It is curled into a wad of frailty… so much that I am afraid to uncurl it because I assume it has become brittle under the breakdown. Yet, I try anyway. The beauty of its tiny veins and minute patches of what it once was… a green leaf… urge me to open it and see it all. Pleasantly surprised, it is not brittle – it is as flexible and strong as leather – it opens easily in my cautious fingers. No part is broken away – I see its full glory in the structure of its veiny bones. I peer into the tinyness of it wishing that it could be magnified, yet the smallness and the study of it makes me realize how amazing God is that He would take such care to design something so intricate even though most will never look close enough to see the beauty. It is a single leaf revealing the beauty of the Lord – the goodness of the Lord. How overwhelming it is that an unfathomable number of leaves on every tree and in every season reveals and testifies of the beauty of the Creator. A new place in my heart opens to His Wisdom. I look through the leaf structure – tiny patterns of frail hardly-there veins - and a new beauty shows itself to me. I love leaves, especially ironic beautiful dying autumn leaves with all their glorious color. How could this frail dead leaf be so gloriously beautiful? I hold it up above my resting head and I see through the “what is left” small windows that which is beyond, above, and around me. I can see the birds and the squirrels in the trees through the tiny openings. I can see the light shining and the clouds beyond the tree-tops. The movement of my hand lifted from this earth toward the heavens in praise is evidence of the forward-moving life that is beyond the beautiful death of that leaf. I drink in His message. He uses frailty to teach me of His ways.