The Exact Right Moment

I’ve been holding on to a picture since May. It is a special photograph that I ran from the front of the house to the back of the house to snap after running to get my camera after standing up and glancing out the window at the exact right moment one morning. What are the chances?! Seriously, I love those moments so much. What I saw was a fox running across the front yard with something in her mouth. I ran to get my camera. I took the lens cap off on the run, turned it on, got to the window, pointed, and…she was gone around the side of the house. I ran to the back and got one picture of her before she slipped into the trees. She was beautiful…and elusive. I thank my lucky stars for encounters like that—even more so when I can manage to capture the moment with my camera. I have seen her four times this Spring and early Summer, out hunting for her kits, I imagine. One time was on my birthday, which is the second time in three years and at two different places that I have seen a fox on my birthday. What are the chances?! I held on to the picture to share at just the right time—so here is my serendipitous photo of the fox—please enjoy, smile, marvel, wonder, and thank your lucky stars that we are privileged to see such beauty!

Five months ago Chris and I walked across the Mississippi River on the thick ice, an experiment in comfort-busting. (go here) The River is a force in Minnesota as it flows from its source at Lake Itasca, diagonally through the central part of the state, down through the Twin Cities, then along the border with Wisconsin until it hands it off to Iowa. The power of the River is the same here as with any river that plays such a huge role in the life of a state. It is commerce, it is recreation, it is aesthetic. The force of the River comes from Mother Nature, however. It is mystical, spiritual, phenomenal. It is ever-flowing. On our bike ride this past weekend, we once again crossed over the River, this time on an old railroad bridge of bumpy, worn railroad ties. The River flowed swiftly and shallowly over rocks, as right behind us was a tall, cement dam and power plant built in 1924. The River is held up, blocked, checked, impeded, restricted, obstructed by the huge dam and controlled as to how much water is released over the dam at any given time. The spirits of the River mourn.

If you are a person who has worked on a farm, one who has ever done the physical work of chopping, de-heading, or hand spraying thistles, you know the ‘eye’ that comes from doing so. You get tuned in to seeing them as you walk the pasture or drive the field roads (or drive the public roads and look at the ditches.) The light purple flowers and prickly stems and leaves are ‘honed in on’ as the enemy, so to speak.

“A weed is a flower growing in the wrong place.” –George Washington Carver

On our bike ride, my thistle-trained eye spotted a patch of purple down the embankment from the bike trail by the River. There on a prickly thistle was a Great Spangled Fritillary drinking in the sweet nectar of that purple flower. The late afternoon sun shone on the pearl white spangles on the underside of its wings and on the lavender flowers, and the light cast a rosy hue on the legs of the butterfly. Beautiful!

“How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant of the weak and strong. Because someday in your life, you will have been all of these.” –George Washington Carver

George Washington Carver had a much deeper, broader, soulful definition of “how far you go in life” than the surface parameters of fame, power, and wealth. Reminds me of something Jesus would say or rather, did say in a number of ways. The spirit of each person is like a river, ever-flowing, the life force that we embody. It is uniquely special and rare. It is not our jobs in life to build dams that block, check, impede, restrict, obstruct, and control the moving life-force in other people. (And that has nothing to do with real and appropriate laws and consistent and responsible order that sustains a functioning community or a functioning individual.) People can hone in on whatever they were trained or believe to be ‘the enemy’—that has much more to say about the person than the perceived enemy. Thistles are on a spectrum from beautiful flower with life-giving nectar to enemy of a healthy, productive pasture. It is not an either/or issue, not right or wrong, not black or white. And like it or not, everything in this world lies on the same spectrum. We live in the long, gray area between the two extremes—or maybe I should say in the beautiful, rainbow colors of that spectrum. And that brings us back to beauty. Without a doubt, we are living through a tumultuous, difficult time, and yet, every day there are those beautiful, elusive moments that open our hearts and make us happy to be alive among God’s creation. Hold on to them. Smile, marvel, wonder, and thank your lucky stars, and then share them with the world.