Oh, deer.
Looks like our once-beautiful hydrangeas will be bloomless again this year.
Or not “bloomless” exactly – more like “harvested”, or “grazed”: their exquisite comeliness, quite literally, nipped in the bud.
Adding insult to injury, Bambi left a few pellets in the vicinity as well – as if to say, “sure enjoyed the meal…” And I noticed that it did feel a bit like an insult, like the local fauna had been picking on me and my plants… scheming to rob us of pleasure and render our lives just a tad more frustrating and miserable.
Which is one way to look at things.
But not the only way. And certainly not the most fruitful way.
That’s kind of a key take-away from the time my Sweetie and I spent on retreat last week. We did a deep-dive into mimetic desire and the human tendency toward scapegoating. Most of us are hardwired to look at the world through just such a lens: “How much better my life would be if only I had that…if only the ‘other’ wasn’t depriving me…”
This is a part of the human spirit that desperately needs grace, needs salvation. And perhaps it’s what Jesus is trying to show us when he teaches, “Fear no one…do not be afraid…are not two sparrows sold for a small coin? Yet not one of them falls to the ground without your Father’s knowledge.”
We lose the blooms on our hydrangeas, and if we’re not careful, part of our trust in God’s providence can go with them. “Why aren’t things going my way in the flower garden? Why is that deer picking on me?”
The truth is so much bigger than that, of course. Life is not just about me and my blooms. Sure, God lovingly keeps count of all the hairs on my head…but God cares for that hungry deer, too. Indeed, perhaps God’s desire is to delight the deer … with tender buds that provide a soaring symphony of sensations on its tongue.
And so, in gazing today upon my grazed hydrangeas, it’s possible that I am being invited to meditate more broadly on grace: God’s saving action in the world.
God’s got this. Even that pesky deer, and every fallen sparrow, knows to delight in God’s goodness. Why, then, is my heart so often troubled? Let me learn to trust instead. As St. Paul reminds us, “How much more did the grace of God and the gracious gift of the one man Jesus Christ overflow for the many.”
In full bloom…in 2020.
Let us pause now…to recall that we are in the presence of the Holy & Merciful One.
IHS
With Us Still 