That Which Lingers

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the early fall of 1929, a beloved aunt dug up some bulbs of her majestic purple and gold irises, and transplanted them in my grandmother's tiny yard in Fort Worth, Texas.  My mother was just ten years old.

People did things like that, back then.  They shared the practical cup of sugar with a needy neighbor, but they also shared beauty and joy.

Just weeks after those beautiful perennials were welcomed into the small garden, the stock market crashed, and the entire country was thrown into the throes of the Great Depression.  But all through those desperate years the irises continued to grow, blooming like a flag of hope every spring, gradually taking over that small plot of dirt.  And of course, without saying, in turn, the irises were divided again and again, and passed on to others as a defiant act of restoration, despite the hardships no one expected: the withering economy, the desperation of no work, the long sickness that took my grandfather's life when my mom was still a teenager, and then, the shocking jolt of another world war. 

In 1951, my widowed grandmother uprooted her own life -- and the irises-- and moved cross-country to help care for our family.  And then, par to course, every time we moved, some of the irises were left behind, and others were dug up and transplanted in our new location.

When my parents finally moved to Florida in the 1990s, my husband and I dug up a box or two of the iris bulbs, out of their overgrown yard. Despite our own many moves, we planted them wherever we lived, left some behind at the house and with neighbors when we transferred to yet another city, and brought along some of the beauty.  God uses us for more than practical purposes, but also, and maybe even more importantly through our actions, to bring beauty, hope and restoration.  God invented beauty, because He knew how much we needed it in this broken world.  And He knew perennials grow without ceasing.

And so, this morning, I spotted the first irises of this season, blooming with all abandon, their deep royal purple flowers calling attention to spring.  I feel like we are coming out of the dark tunnel of the pandemic, as if spring never happened last year.  We have no idea what is ahead in the months to come, but God does.  And He provides the beauty to sustain us, glimpses of Himself, day after day, season after season.

That aunt, so long ago we don't remember her name, had no idea what joy she was sowing and what beauty still beheld now almost a hundred years later.  We are so caught up in what we think matters, we miss that which lingers far beyond our lifetimes, even that which proclaims the faithfulness of God to those yet unborn.  And keeps on growing.

What am I planting today?  What will linger?