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I’ve been seeing a lot of cardinals lately.

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Not the baseball team, but the bird. (However I can’t  get away from them either.)

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The point is, I’ve been seeing this bird a lot lately.  Maybe it’s coincidence, maybe it’s luck, but as a Doctor once told me, “never ignore a coincidence unless you’re busy, then always ignore them.”

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Cardinals are red, often the color of red is seen as bad, or any other nature of bad red things.  However in this instance red isn’t bad.  The red plumage of the cardinal stands out among most backgrounds, especially in a particularly spring, green Arkansas.  Red is the color of blood, which is the life-force of all living things.  We need this to survive, for our health and harmony.

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Maybe the cardinals mean nothing.

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However, I’m taking this and seeing what is already inside of me.  The Cardinal represents a revitalization of my life.  As I am now finished with my Masters degree and on the hunt for a job I am revitalized to see the world more clearly and confidently.

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“There is a time for everything”, and in this instance there is a time to wait, and bide  my time for whatever is next. The world out there isn’t so bad, all you need is balance and well-being and a little patience.

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Maybe the cardinals mean something.

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(photo by tricherson)

Some things in life can make you sit in wonder and disillusion.

I’ve been having those moments a lot lately. I am working outside doing landscaping work this summer, and I’m surrounded by trees, flowers, grass and other things pertaining to nature. You never look and analyze at something like blades of grass or tree blossoms on a tree until you spend eight hours a day around them.

This is less of a real story. More of a story from an observation I made.

The Gardener

The Crepe Myrtle sits amongst a thatch of juniper bushes. It is not a particularly gorgeous arrangement of flora, but it serves it’s purpose and creates a green area to off set the dry landscape around them. She abides in commonplace and the world cannot see her true beauty yet because her day has not come yet.

She has buds that are just screaming to bloom and new growth that gives way to her true beauty, but she has been neglected and the overgrowth of previous years and dead branches covers up her beauty and splendor.

Some of her buds try to bloom, but are blocked out by all of her fruitless branches slowly killing and taking over. The light is blocked out and she begins to feel the slow cold of her demise, with none to enjoy her last breathes of splendor.

But somehow the dead branches and fruitless growth begins to be pruned away. With each clip she feels her health and spirit begin to grow. A gardener has began to prune away at her branches.

He snips and clips away at the dead lifeless parts of her and opens up areas of her existence that she had never seen before. Light began to shine through. The gardener keeps working away at her cutting parts of her that aren’t necessary. He works hard and sweat rolls of his brow and drips to round below where her roots have become exposed.

The gardener smiles to find new parts of The Crepe Myrtle exposed to the sun and warmth of the Summer day. He continues his work without break and without hesitation. She worries when parts of her branches that to her seemed fine end up being clipped too.

She still sits among the juniper bushes with her buds waiting to bloom, and waiting for the world to see her beauty.

The next day she still has not bloomed, but the gardener comes and waters her roots and gives them a nice cool on her feet to quench her thirst during the hot summer day. She is still confused why no one will come and see her splendor. The gardener covers her roots with mulch to keep them moist and cool during the day.

She sits all day and wonders why no one will come see how beautiful she is. This gardener keeps coming each day and clips away the dead parts and fruitless things about her. She wonders why no one will look at her splendor.

One morning as the sun begins to rise she sees someone on the horizon, but cannot make out who it is. She rustles with excitement in the breeze hoping and wishing it is someone to see her splendor.

The silhouette of the person in the distance becomes clear that it is the gardener, but this time he doesn’t have any tools in his hand. He came there with one thing… his eyes. So he could see how beautiful she truly was.

As the breeze blows through her branches and moves her leaves and pink-reddish blossoms she realizes that there was someone there all along to take care of her and look back and love everything about her in a way that no one else in the world could. She finally found someone was admiring her splendor all along… The Gardener.

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We often get caught up in ourselves so much that we can’t see the people around us that have been there the entire time helping us along. Remember to look back and see who’s helped you get to where you are now. Sometimes we forget about those people.

There is one Eternal Gardener that will prune, feed and provide for us but all we have to do is allow this “gardener” into our lives. All he want is to love and give to those that will receive him. If we accept this gardener’s gift of sacrifice for our lives then we too can be held in splendor and will continue to bear fruit and live forever.

This gardener’s name is Jesus Christ.

Some things in life can make you sit in wonder and disillusion.

I had that moment yesterday. I am working outside doing landscaping work this summer, and I’m surrounded by trees, flowers, grass and other things pertaining to nature. You never look and analyze at something like blades of grass or blossoms on a tree until you spend eight hours a day around them.

I’m going to put this story in narrative form because that’s the way it happened to me, and it the way it happened in my head.

This is a true story.

The Epic Battle…

It was a very hot day. The sun set high in the sky beating down on my head. I was instructed by my supervisor to walk around the area and pull weeds and other plants that shouldn’t be there. I decided I would find a nice shady area to pull weeds for a moment.

I walk across the parking lot toward my oasis of trees and flower beds. The sweat was dripping off my forehead, and running into my eyes. I sighed deeply once I found my way under the shade trees. I began to walk around the area to begin my groundskeeper duties.

As I walked around the area pulling up tree sprouts attached to acorns that squirrels had buried and forgot about, I happened upon a bird that was sitting on the ground. It appeared to be hurt, but in any way it could not fly. I was able to come very close, but as I got closer the bird began to chirp loudly.

I back away partly because I was surprised, but also out of courtesy for the bird. As I back away a hawk swoops in toward the bird on the ground. I could only catch a small glance as the bird was descending, but this brown hawk had one thought on it’s mind. To snatch the hurt bird from the ground.

As the hawk came closer a second pigeon came out of nowhere and dive-bombed the hawk and threw him off his path of descent. Two other bird came out from a tree to join in the epic battle. The hawk and the pigeons fought and pecked at each-other for a moment and then the hawk grasps the first bird in his talon and flies off in the opposite direction.

I look and see the hawk flying away with the two other pigeons flying after, but eventually giving up because the hawk flies with much more velocity and distance. I am sitting there looking at the bird on the ground and looking off at the hawk in the distance.

I sat there silent, thinking that I never knew how vicious nature could truly be.

I look at the bird on the ground. It began to chirp loudly again. It was calling out as to be calling to a friend or a lover. It turned its head toward me and stared me down with it’s beady eyes.

Staring deep at the bird it seems as if she was saying to me, ‘He saved me. He gave up his life to save me.”

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The beauty and poetic nature of dying for the one that we love was so terribly evident. I could do nothing, but sit and wonder to myself this idea; that to this bird seemed so simple. To save ones life meant to risk his own. This epic battle was not for his life, but for the one that he loved.

As I walked away hearing the bird chirp for her loss, my heart sank and I haven’t been able to think of anything since. That’s something I want. A love so strong for the people around me that I would not only fight for their life, but also die.

That to me is the most epic battle.