fourfeetsixinches

one of the most common questions when talking with people about landscaping is about maintenance. people always want low maintenance. “please just make it look great! oh, and could you also make it so that i don’t have to do much to keep it looking great. yeah, that’s the kind of landscape i want.”

ok, i’ll see what i can do for you…

so i go home and on my way into the house i see the cracks between my pavers and alas, there is a varmit that has taken up residence. crab grass. but i am not disturbed because there is only one little varmit there. in all my property there is only one. and i can bend down and pull it out and that will be all taken care of. minimal maintenance. and in the background i hear louis armstrong singing “..and i think to myself, what a wonderful world…”

sarcasm aside… i wonder where on this side of Eden you can find a sidewalk made of pavers with only one  little tuft of crabgrass growing in it. because i am lying. i wish there was only one tuft of crabgrass or any other weed growing on my property. weeds show up almost everywhere anything of value grows.

where there is life, there is maintenance. is just how it is. there are cracks in our lives and there are weeds growing in the cracks. and if we don’t take care of things, they will grow up. more and more. and eventually they will take over to the point of not being able to see the sidewalk made of pavers. or any other solid thing of value and function in our lives.

we have the choice of guarding against being overrun with weeds. pull them when they’re small. get out the round-up and spray. whatever it takes.

“Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.” [Proverbs 4:23] 

guarding your heart requires maintenance. daily maintenance. sometimes it can be moment to moment. because leaving the weeds unattended ends up choking out the best in our lives. covering the solid. the quality. sapping the energy from our hearts, from where the wellspring flows…

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was sipping on a cup of coffee this morning out by the potting bench. The sun getting an early start on warming up another august day. shining through the rain gauge that has been non-graced by rainfall for quite some time. dust and a few small bugs inhabit the one-tenth-of-an-inch zone. that’s it. no water.

i took the scenic route through the drive-thru for some coffee on the way to work. ran into a friend there who asked how i was. “tired.” that’s what i said. doing ok, but just feel tired. but maybe “dry” is a more apt descriptor of what i’m feeling right now. could use some rain, so to speak. my yard is going brown. my garden hanging on with a little irrigation from time to time. but i’m not always good about irrigating the soil of my soul. something else always seems to scream louder for my attention, and i forget to turn on the hose and refresh those places within me that need life-giving water.

“O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water.”    Psalm 63

check out  “Love is Here”  by Tenth Avenue North on Youtube:   http://youtu.be/UVNxGiQk6FM

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over the years since the accident, i’ve thought about various activities that i would be able to do that didn’t require the use of my legs. kayaking was one i have long thought i could do. but…there has been this fear. first of all, i didn’t know for sure how i would get my legs into one of these little things and then into the water. and second, which was the fear-producing thing for me; if i tip the kayak over, how will i ever get these long gangly mostly-paralyzed legs out in time to keep myself from drinking excessive amounts of water infused with duck poop? so, i’ve gone years. no…decades without trying it. without risking it.

so while in wisconsin a couple of weeks ago, we deliberated about giving it a shot. and our deliberation ended with me being lifted and slid into this brightly colored craft and then pushed into the St. Croix River. and then a two-and-a-half hour adventure downstream with my family and friends to the pick up site. it was awesome! seriously awesome! and of course, now i want one. matter of fact, i want to be out on the water right now.

when i was a “fresh cut gimp” as some of the “old guys” at rehab used to call us who were new at the paralysis thing, i took more risks. and sometimes my risks left me with more injuries. so over the years, it’s not like i’ve stopped risking, but i have had limits. up until a couple of weeks ago, this was one of them. but now, there is a whole new door that is open to me. the thing is, i was the one who wouldn’t grab onto that door knob and turn it. i was the one who kept it shut. how often, and in what various kinds of ways do we do that kind of thing?

“No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him.”  1 Corinthians 2:9

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confession: a couple of weeks ago i was driving home from a singing engagement in illinois. hurrying. there was some great sky and sunset stuff going on, but i didn’t have time to stop. so as i was driving, i took out my camera and attempted to snap some photos without looking through to viewer. sort of point and shoot and see what i could capture. that was my method. not sure how safe it was, but…

anyway, these first two shots are of almost the same scene. but the auto-focus mechanism on the camera made them look very different. one is focused on the bugs stuck to my windshield, the other on the sunset hanging over the horizon. so, a reminder to me; what i choose to focus on makes a significant difference. i can look at a smudged windshield occupied by dead bugs or a sunset. and it’s not like i’m encouraging some sort of pollyanna approach to life…only look at the “nice things” and pretend that the less pleasant stuff isn’t actually there. not at all. there will likely always be some kind of bug smears that get in the way of beauty around us…i just don’t want to miss the beauty for the bugs. 

i got a text from pastor scott mathis in wyoming this morning. said he was praying for me to “be wise. to keep an eternal perspective…” sometimes when i focus on  the bugs on my windshield and miss the beauty of the sunsets, it is similar to scott’s prayer for me today. keeping an eternal perspective can help us to look through the bugs of day to day life. those things that block the big picture. those in-your-face things that cloud the eternal perspective.

in jeremiah 31 God assures us that He has loved us with an everlasting love, and that He continues in faithfulness toward us. keeping that promise in mind can help maintain an eternal perspective. it can keep the bugs on the windshield from blocking the beauty from our view. and as such, the present focus and purpose of our lives. so i attempt to keep asking myself: “just where is my most consistent focus? here or there? near or far? temporal or eternal? my current struggles or my hope in God?

i really like this song by Kristian Stanfill  called “Always.”     http://youtu.be/hN7L3m9jIcc

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am getting older. the numbers keep getting bigger. the wrinkles deeper. the list of changes goes on…some subtle and some undeniably obvious. 

i am grateful for all the birthday wishes today. and one of the things that strikes me, especially about the facebook messages, is that they come from all over the place… and from you who i’ve met at very different seasons of my life and in all kinds of places and situations. as messages pop up, they remind me of you, and how and where we met and how your life has had an effect on me in some significant way. am amazed at the way God had allowed it all to work together. how He has used you to encourage and refresh my life. how i’ve been spurred on to keep going. ripples of you continue to stir the waters of my life. am a grateful man. thank you for having a living effect on my life. on my heart. 

“I thank my God every time I remember you.”   -Philippians 1

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returned saturday evening from a few days in Wisconsin…my fears of being “meals on wheels” for a hungry black bear were for naught. was great to be away for a bit. great to spend time with fun and trusted friends as well.  i took a lot of photos and have some things on my mind to share here sometime soon, hopefully. this is but one view of a sunset over Lake 26, [which is a very unimaginative name for such a beautiful lake]. God’s creative handiwork was displayed there in so many ways. we spent our time there and came away from it with deep gratitude.

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for a number of years since moving to north iowa, i have done a fair amount of landscaping. it started during the summers when my client load would typically slow down. after we moved to the area, our realtor, jane, saw some things we had done to our place in town, liked the change, and asked if i would help her with some landscape at her home. i did. and that became a sort of ongoing project for several years, working in the empty lot that she owned beside her house. i learned a great deal there and had a great time updating the plantings around her house and transforming the empty lot connected to it. during that time my neighbor and i went through the master gardener’s program through the iowa state extension as well.

i still do some design work and like to chat with people about pushing their yards to somewhat more of an edenic state. there’s just something about it that i really like. something about it brings part of me more alive. seeing things that could be before they are. possibilities waiting to be realities.

so this past week i visited the nursery and brought home a load of plants and shrubs. set the containers on my driveway for a while before delivering them to project sites. here was all this horticultural beauty sitting there in growing containers. just waiting for a more permanent place to grow. to be transplanted. waiting for change. waiting for a place where the possibilities for growth are greater than in a small plastic container.

i’ve found over the years that some plants are more able to tolerate living in small containers for extended periods of time. others quickly become root bound and are prone to become weak and/or susceptible to various unhealthy conditions or diseases.

sometimes while i’m landscaping, i find myself thinking more about how such transplanting and growth concepts play into my life. how i can be all too  easily contented with keeping my life in a small container, so to speak. where it’s safe and manageable. with safety, with manageability, after all, comes limitation. i want to be more open to situations where the possibilities for growth are greater than the routines or ruts that life can so easily fall into.

“I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”    -Ephesians 3:16-

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 we were in nebraska over memorial weekend.  i rambled about one perspective of scottsbluff a week or so ago. am thinking about the bluff thing again this week, although from a little different angle.

another definition of “bluff” has to do with a game of cards and “making a bold bet on an inferior hand.” we’ve probably all been there. in a card game where the cards are dealt, and we just feel like we’ve got nothing in our hand worth playing. no cards to combine to give us much of a chance to win at all. which leaves you with a choice…do you fold? do you bluff? do you quit? or take a risk with the hand you’ve been given? a bold bet with an inferior hand.

i know a lot of  people who feel at times like they’ve been dealt a less-than-desirable hand in life. i’ve felt like that as well. still do on many days, if i’m honest about the challenges of my paralysis. so how do you feel about the hand you’ve been dealt? whatever it might be. you continue to lose the struggle with your weight? with depression having way too much of a downward pull on your life? you can’t get close to your spouse in ways you long for? can’t seem to get your finances even close to a comfortable place? can’t forgive yourself or someone else for some kind of wounding choice that was made?  there is a nearly endless list of “cards” in life that contribute to an “inferior hand” for many of us.

so i ask this: can you make a bold bet with whatever hand you’ve been dealt?  i look at these photos and think of such. growth and beauty in the midst of a less-than-optimal place to try to grow. this pine tree atop a narrow crag. lavender and yellow flowers pushing up out of a crack in the sandstone. green vines draping and blooming over dry and rocky protrusions. in the horticultural world these guys have made a bold bet with an inferior hand.

the Son of God took on flesh. adopted an inferior stance by our standards. the Creator of the universe took a humble position and became servant. lived with the limits with which we are familiar. Isaiah says he grew up “like a tender green shoot, like a root in dry ground.” like the plants in these photos. He made a bold bet. a bold move. a move toward us in love. and life and growth and beauty grows out of such. let that example not only draw you closer to Him, but let it also breathe a sense of courage into your being. to take the hand you’ve been given and make a bold bet. a bold move with your one and only life.

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