Thoughts on "Summer Morning"
As promised, I’m back to talk about “Summer Morning,” the haiku I published a couple of days ago.
Here it is again, along with the spider’s web that inspired it:
Summer Morning
Pearls of water cling
To lace woven by moonlight,
Worlds long gone by noon.
I was astonished by the size and complexity of this web when I saw it on our front porch one morning last month. I hadn’t seen it the night before, so it was clear the spider had been quite busy on the third shift.
Almost as surprising was the fact that it had disappeared completely by lunch time. My brain went to the obvious analogy: like the spider’s web, the things of this world don’t last.
Including us. (Kind of. Keep reading.)
David sums up the situation well:
O Lord, make me know my end
and what is the measure of my days;
let me know how fleeting I am!
Behold, you have made my days a few handbreadths,
and my lifetime is nothing before you.
Surely mankind stands as a mere breath! Selah
…
And now, O Lord, for what do I wait?
My hope is in you. (Psalm 39: 4-5, 7; ESV)
David put his trust in the Only One Who endures: God, unchanged and unchanging. As Jesus said to His apostle John, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.” (Revelation 22:13, ESV)
The more birthdays I celebrate, the more keenly I am aware that the physical body which hauls my soul from place to place came from dust and to dust it shall return. (Taken from Genesis 3:19. And remember my “kind of” earlier? This is what I was talking about. My 5-foot, 6-inch self won’t last forever, but what’s inside will. That’s what makes this whole eternity thing quite important.)
God has placed eternity in our hearts. (Ecclesiastes 3:11) But further reflection leads me to believe He wants us to find joy in the transitory as well.
Surely Almighty God could have made a functional world in shades of gray. And yet He did not. He chose instead to give us a universe of color, from the rings of Saturn to the hydrangea in my front yard. I believe He revels in beauty and wants us to do the same.
When Jesus talked about how to deal with worry, He used flowers in His illustration:
“And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?” (Matthew 6: 28-30, ESV)
If God has gone to the trouble of making a fragile flower a thing of unrivaled beauty, it seems only right that I should enjoy it.
A flower. A sunset. A grandchild’s laughter. A slice of chocolate fudge cake made by my mama. A reunion with a dear friend. A Vivaldi concerto. A quiet evening on the porch with my husband. All transitory. All gifts from my good and gracious Father, daily bread to enhance the good times and carry me through the bad. Delivered moment by moment.
I resolve to enjoy them all.
