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I love fruit (you may recall my affinity for mangoes), and I just had the perfect pluot. As I took my first bite, juice came rushing forth - not just dancing delightfully over my taste buds, but also in alarmingly large quantities onto my shirt. Covered in bright purple juice, I decided I had nothing to lose and simply to keep eating, enjoying the delicious fruit. My friend recently remarked to me that I have an interesting response when things don't go as I expect when I'm trying something new, that I'm generally more curious than upset, and that was kind of the case here. I thought the juice flow would abate, that the first bite tearing the skin was the cause for the vast juice quantities. Nope. Even more came with the next bite and more and more. I was a mess, and loving every second of it. Reveling in carefree abandonment, pluot in hand, walking (barefoot, of course) in my yard, I started thinking about how many of the things I love or enjoy - particularly about summer - are accompanied by being messy or dirty.
Pluots to start, obviously, but then on to other great summer fruits: peaches, watermelon, berries... seriously, the best peaches can barely even be considered a solid. Next up we've got hiking and camping. If you've been hiking or camping without getting dirty, I'm not sure you've been hiking or camping. As much as you try to avoid it, sometimes you are just going to sink into mud up to your knees - I have friends who will attest to this due to recent experience. Or be covered or smudged by the ash from a fire you've just cooked over or lit. Run through the woods without regard to whether or not you'll stain your clothes. Dive for a volleyball on a sand court. Jump out of the boat to get out and swim. Dance in a rainstorm. Slip and slides, mud fights, climbing trees, hopping fences, whatever! Set aside comfort and fear, dive into the adventure. Just to be out and to put aside the concern of having food on your face or dirt on your clothes and to simply be and be grateful.
Live in the present, enjoy it, love it. Yesterday I was alive, but today I am alive. Recognizing the blessings of now helps me know God's love for me. If I look at now and see the beauty in it, and not only to the past or future, I actively experience His love for me. He is loving me in the present, he is making a gift to me of this moment. If I live now, I can see all of this as gift. We are in a state of being perpetually and actively loved, and if I can simply enjoy the mess of the moment, I can know that. Even in the hard things, the large messes of life that are far more trying than a juice stain on the shirt, with the right focus, I can know that I am loved, looked-after, and provided for. What more could I ask? The mess allows me to abandon myself to love.
Matt 6:25-34, I think you should read it.
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"I have come that they might have life, and have it abundantly." -John 10:10b
"Do not worry about tomorrow; tomorrow will take care of itself. Sufficient for the day is its own troubles." -Matt 6:34
"An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered." -G.K. Chesteron
