My daughter Maria brought home this clipping from the September 11th, 2002 edition of the New Orleans "Clarion Herald" yesterday. While I'm not a Catholic and don't have the same perspective on Mary as many Catholics do, I still find this picture and its accompanying story surprisingly and tenderly thought-provoking. I like the idea that a picture of a little girl chatting away with a garden statue might remind us that we are to come to God as little children.I suspect this little girl enjoyed babbling to the statue mostly because the statue was her own height. Or maybe she starting talking to it simply because the statue was such a polite and respectful listener. Perhaps she thought the statue was pretty in some way. Who knows why? But for whatever reason, they became friends.
I've had occasion to visit two elderly friends this week. One is dealing with some growing memory problems and another is struggling to handle a range of medical issues along with some troubling family stuff. In both cases, I've been struck by the importance of someone simply being available to listen. Someone who will sit down with them for a moment, listen politely and respectfully...just be an attractive, peaceful presence in their lives. Just a friend.
Yesterday my Maria got official word that she didn't get into a nurses training program she was hoping to enter this fall. The school selects its finalist candidates by lottery (which confuses us a bit to be honest), but we've taken this unpleasant surprise in stride. My Maria already has a job caring for elderly friends at Catholic Eldercare here in Northeast Minneapolis and she is good at it. She loves her friends there. She takes time with them. She respects them. She listens to them. She takes her job seriously. She is something lovely in the garden for anyone to talk to. I know I'm stupidly biased, but my Maria is the kind of person I hope I have caring for me if I'm ever in a position to need it. I hope she is always standing there in the garden for me.
This world regularly tries to convince us we don't matter if we're just a quiet, peaceful statue in the garden. (Who honestly cares what a babbling toddler has to say anyway? Who needs to pay attention to that stuff?) Yet even as I hear those shallow ideas surfacing, I am reminded again of how wrong that utilitarian thinking really and truly is. These "blessed are the little things" moments shouldn't surprise any of us by now. We all know the truth of what I'm saying. God is constantly in the business of using the weak to shame the strong; the little to overcome the large. This is just the sneaky way the Kingdom works.
Lord, may I be surprised and refreshed by the very littlest things in the garden! And may I be willing to faithfully be one your little surprises in the lives of others!
Amen.
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