CONSIDER THE LILY

thin yellow lily

stealing scratches of sun space

framing cobalt lake

In Northern Michigan lilies grow abundantly in July: outlining orchards, framing farms, running riotous in Garden Walk Gardens. But ours, along the deck edge, are always just a little later, patiently waiting for the sun to find a path through the pines.

Consider how the lilies grow

They do not labor or spin. Yet

I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendor

was dressed like one of these.

Luke 12:27

I spend way too much time meandering through my mind searching out meanings and metaphors; answers to deep questions: What is my purpose? Why do I weep? Is there a way out of this morass?   I keep waiting, not very patiently, for some message of mission.  Maybe, learning from the lily, I should quit laboring and spinning and turn toward the light, abiding in God’s splendor.

In her poem, “The Lily,” Mary Oliver wonders if the lily talks in “lily language” at night but decides it must patiently stand until the moon:

“becomes the golden sun –
as the lily absolutely knew it would,
which is itself, isn’t it,
the perfect prayer?
(Mary Oliver, from Why I Wake Early, 2004)

Perhaps my own prayer is hidden in the lily: a contemplative turning to the sun of my soul.