Praise for Things Impermanent

Spring is obviously here. Even though the thermometer shifts between 97° one day and 61° a few days later, the mulberry trees have lost their fuzzies and the leaves are now full sized. The roses are starting to bloom, the jasmine is a day or two away from open blossoms, and the kleenexes are filling the trash baskets because of the pollen that marks spring's exuberance after a winter of hibernation. Another signal of spring is the lengthening of days. That can be a good or a bad thing, depending.

It's easier to get moving in the morning when there's light outside. Somehow when it's still dark when I get up and even when I get ready to go to work, it's harder to leave the house (sometimes even to get out of bed.). Like the plants, I've got more energy and urge to get moving even if I don't bloom (except maybe as a bloomin' idiot sometimes).

I have prisms and things hanging in all my living room windows. the small-bay windows are oriented toward the north and mostly shaded by one of the mulberry trees. Still, this morning, There were flashes of color coming from a round prism I have hanging in the north-west one, light striking it from the window on the east wall at just precisely the right angle. Phoebe was confused by all the little flashes that suddenly appeared on the ceiling and I was mesmerized by the flashes of color in the heart of the prism, but by the time I grabbed my camera and got back, the sun had risen higher in the sky and the prism was asleep again. But wait --- a prism in the east window as just getting its moment in the sun and there were some bold splashes of color dancing around the room, including the ceiling. it only lasted a very few minutes, but oh, what glory in those few brief moments in time.

It made me think about transient things, how briefly things and people come into my life, seemingly out of nowhere, create a splash and then fade away again as if they'd never been there. But they were -- that brief time is engraved on the memory, for good or for ill, and becomes part of me, part of what makes me me -- my thoughts, my experiences, my memories.

The Bible uses flashes usually in terms of lightning flashing across the sky, the sound of YHWH's voice, the swiftness of arrows and the flickering of flame. There are moments, though, when a momentary something happens that changes everything. Just in the gospels, stories of Jesus touching people who seemingly come from nowhere, encounter Jesus, are healed or changed and then sink back into oblivion are everywhere. The blind man from last week's reading, the Syrophoenician woman, the woman with the hemorrhage, the leper, the Gerasene demonic -- like meteors their stories flash across the horizon of our consciousness and then vanish, leaving only the memory of themselves, their story and their encounter with Jesus for us to contemplate. It only takes a minute to change a life, really; the gospels are full of them, as is the rest of the Bible. One simply has to be in the right place at the right time for something that was just words to become a flash of rainbow that changes how we see, think and act.

The rainbow on the ceiling has faded but I caught it with my camera. I know that tomorrow another will take its place, if the sun is rising and it isn't cloudy, and whether or not I am here to observe its coming and going. But that is tomorrow. Today I have the memory of something bright, beautiful and fleeting that made me think of the value of not durable goods but rather the importance of transient things. It reminds me to look for the flashes of -- beauty? importance? intuition? joy? -- that happen in everyday life and suddenly change how I see or feel things. It reminds me that there is value in impermanent things because they can give permanent blessings and insights.

Kinda like Jesus passing through a town and in a flash, healing what had been un-healable.

Today I give thanks for the little flashes that bring me insights into greater things. May I not forget to look for them tomorrow.