Perhaps it’s odd to think so much about dying as Spring prepares to yield to Summer, the time when all of creation comes to life and thrives vibrantly. Each morning the vegetation is larger, brighter, bearing more blooms or fruit; but it’s not just the vegetation. As the deer and rabbits emerge from the woods each morning, with them are starting to appear fawns and bunnies. This time of year, life is in full bloom in all its glory.
Perhaps it’s odd to think so much about dying as Spring prepares to yield to Summer, but things die in the summer just like any other time of year. I started to notice, on my weekly, hour and a half round trip drive to church, how many evergreen trees were filled with rusty brown branches. When evergreens start to look like usually-greens, it stands out. From there it expanded to my noticing the two large trees just west of our garden no longer producing leaves on their branches. Although they tower above us some forty feet high, there are more leaves on our tomato plants than on those trees; they are clearly dying. This morning it hit closer to home. If you’ve read much of any thing I’ve written, you know I have a profound love for jasmine; to me it’s a love story, though I suspect Honey might use the word obsession. One of the great highlights of my year is when the first jasmine blooms and I get to inhale — what is to me — the most glorious scent on earth. When our jasmine are in bloom, I will literally begin and end my day deeply breathing in their magical fragrance.
Last year we had two magnificent jasmine vines that carried blooms until the first week of October. I was ecstatic, though come spring, I would be devastated. The abnormally arctic winter we had killed both vines. When spring arrived, they did not revive. Honey blessed me with two new plants, that I have checked every day for a bloom. Weeks have gone by and nothing. I should have anticipated this; nature loves balance, and blooms that last far beyond their season are now resulting in blooms that are far behind season. And then, just a few days ago, I saw a bloom. A single, beautiful little white star made of petals appeared, and time stood still when I breathed it in. Its arrival is so late in the season, but it arrived nonetheless. Each morning and evening since I have treated myself to this little blessing that provides me with a hyper-inflated sense of joy….until today. When I arrived at the branch where my little friend would greet me each day, I found a barren stem, and in the dirt below, my little fallen star. I felt my heart sink, then I picked it up, took one last deep breath of its heavenly smell, and then moved on.
Long ago, Isaiah said, “The grass withers, the flower fades.” (Isaiah 40:8).
Later this morning, I ready my own obituary. Well, technically it wasn’t mine, but it was a 37 year old man named Brandon Britton who was killed in a motorcycle accident in Lakeland, FL. I’ve spent a decent amount of time in Lakeland, Florida. Lakeland was where I ate my first of very many Cuban sandwiches with a side of black beans and rice. It’s weird seeing your name in an obituary listing. It stops you for a moment and shifts your perspective a little bit. Shortly after, I learned that one of my oldest and dearest friends is currently sitting at his father’s bedside as he dies. Today has certainly been a day where death is making its presence felt, in small ways and large ways, both near and far.
Quoting Isaiah, Simon Peter once wrote,
“All people are like grass,
and all their glory is like the flowers of the field;
the grass withers and the flowers fall,
but the word of the Lord endures forever.”
I grieved over the death of my little jasmine blossom and I grieve that a man died with so much life to live, and I grieve over the impending death of my friend’s father. I grieve but I also remember to rejoice in the good while we have it. The reason I smell the jasmine blooms multiple times a day is precisely because I know they aren’t going to always be around. I have to enjoy and appreciate them while I have them because sooner than I want they will return to the earth. And so will everyone and everything I love. That little bloom falling to the earth, the obituary, the text from my friend, are all reminders that I have to enjoy and appreciate everything I love while I have it with me. Even in the original Garden of God, the Eden of so long ago (the meaning of which is ‘delight’), God told the humans, “You are dust and you will return to the dust from which you came.” Nothing last forever. Not the good, and thankfully not the bad.
Our little home grown, replanted Eden, is constantly teaching me things I need to know or reminding me of things I cannot afford to forget. Today’s lesson was in gratitude and appreciation for all that I have to celebrate, and to breathe it in deeply every opportunity I have. Editorially, I know this is the proper place to end this posting, but this is not how the story ends.
Before I walked away from the jasmine vines, as I lifted my eyes up from the ground where the bloom had fallen, my view landed on a dozen new blooms on the verge of bursting open and releasing their radiance. I don’t know how many days I will have to wait before they greet me and welcome me into their enchantment, but I know that day is coming soon. That one little bloom that I took so much joy in for the last week was just the first fruits of many more to come.
While it remains true that all flesh is like grass that withers and flowers that fall to the ground, it is also true that, “there are different kinds of flesh—one kind for humans, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish. There are also bodies in the heavens and bodies on the earth. The glory of the heavenly bodies is different from the glory of the earthly bodies. The sun has one kind of glory, while the moon and stars each have another kind. And even the stars differ from each other in their glory. It is the same way with the resurrection of the dead. Our earthly bodies are planted in the ground when we die, but they will be raised to live forever. Our bodies are buried in brokenness, but they will be raised in glory. They are buried in weakness, but they will be raised in strength. They are buried as natural human bodies, but they will be raised as spiritual bodies. For just as there are natural bodies, there are also spiritual bodies…Christ has been raised from the dead. He is the first of a great harvest of all who have died.” (1 Corinthians 15:39-44, v.20)
"Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory he will reveal to us later. For all creation is waiting eagerly for that future day when God will reveal who his children really are...with eager hope, the creation looks forward to the day when it will join God’s children in glorious freedom from death and decay. For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. And we believers also groan, even though we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, for we long for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering. We, too, wait with eager hope for the day when God will give us our full rights as his adopted children, including the new bodies he has promised us...But if we look forward to something we don’t yet have, we must wait patiently and confidently." (Romans 8:18-25)
"Our days on earth are like grass; like wildflowers, we bloom and die. The wind blows, and we are gone— as though we had never been here. But the love of the LORD remains forever with those who fear him." (Psalm 103:15-18).
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