The Beauty of Being

Whenever I go to the mountains, I feel as if  I need to have some sort of "experience" with the beauty of creation. Everyone always talks about these "experiences" they have with the smells, sights, and sounds of God's creation. Inevitably, upon returning from the mountains, people ask, "Wasn't it just so refreshing? Didn't just just see God everywhere?"

Well, yes, but . .  huh? Did I miss something? Was I supposed to feel more?

So, every time I go, I feel this compulsion to "drink in" (as people always do) this beauty -- to force some sort of spiritual experience.

But I've at last grown weary of the compulsion, and during my most recent foray into the mountains, I just didn't want to play that game anymore. I wanted to allow Him to float by me -- to surprise me -- if He so desired. And if not, then I would  thank Him for the beauty, allow the sound of rushing water to sooth my dry spirit, smell the pine, and go home.

And so it happened, as I was tripping along my non-compulsive way on this last trek to the mountains, that I stepped outside of our cabin and was greeted by a host of wildflowers.

Now, as my husband will attest to, bringing the beauty of fresh-cut flowers indoors gives my heart great joy. (This is much to his chagrin, however, for he's spotted BUGS on these flowers more than once. I don't mind these friendly critters that stay put on their beautiful homes, but this poses a serious challenge to his comfort.) Nonetheless, I began gathering a number of bouquets. Some contained just white flowers, some were multi-colored, some were varying shades of purple, but all were delicately and wildly beautiful.

My favorite flower in these gathering sessions (for there were many throughout our stay) was the Mountain Bluebell Bell flower. It has such a delicate head whose feather-weight pulls its fragile stem into a gentle arch. Clothed in a vibrant but almost translucent purple, its beauty and vulnerability captured my heart. In a field of flowers, this one made me stop.





Because it was alone.
Because it was fragile.
Because it just was.






I'm not sure why this flower -- of all the beautiful ones -- impressed me so.  Whether there was one flower per stalk, or two or three, there was a terrible fragility to this flower as it stood alone, so susceptible to being trampled by a thoughtless tread or beat down by a hard rain.

I didn't want to pick these flowers.

Somehow, I felt that picking them was depriving them of their God-given purpose of bringing glory to Him in a field of grass. Not many people saw these precious flowers -- just Him and me and possibly a handful of others. These flowers were not on the Times Square JumboTron. They were not famous or sought after for their beauty. They just existed in a field and brought pleasure to Him.

What a high calling. What a glorious purpose -- just to bring His heart delight as He gazed upon it.

And I found my heart identifying with this tiny flower, for this is what I want.

This flower is somehow me. I want to just be. I want to give His heart delight by just existing as I was created to.

But it is so hard.

No other life on the planet struggles to just be like we do, as humans. This is irony, of course, because how can one struggle to be. The act of being is the state of ceasing to struggle, to simply exist. What a mess has been made of what was once simply beautiful humanity.

In his book The Gift of Being Yourself, David Benner gave vent to the struggle of my heart with these words --

"In all of creation, identity is a challenge only for humans. A tulip knows exactly what it is. It is never tempted by false ways of being. Nor does it face complicated decisions in the process of becoming. So it is with dogs, rocks, trees, stars, amoebas, electrons, and all other things. All give glory to God by being exactly what they are. For in being what God means them to be, they are obeying Him. Humans, however, face a more challenged existence. We think. We consider options. We decide. We act. We doubt. Simple being is tremendously difficult to achieve and fully authentic being is extremely rare."

And yet this is what I want. I want to reach the place of rest --

the place of being
the place where striving ceases
the place where I am ever aware of Whose I am
the place where I find my true self, hidden in Him
the place where I know, as I am known
the place that is home

What this simple flower so easily does, I am in the process of finding my way back to -- being.

Lord, take me there.