He came walking into the house with emotion filled voice, and said, "I was walking home and noticed a beautiful orange tree not far off and had to get closer to see it". He had cantaloupe-colored, blooms in his hand, and his eyes were shining as he pressed one into my palm.
I did smile at that. In our years of raising kids in the states, I often felt sad, or wistful maybe, for the things our kids were not getting that I treasure from my childhood, one of them being, a sense of wonder and curiosity about nature.
As a kid I lived in a place where rolling hills, woods, and streams were my play places. Building forts with hay-lined floors, laying near the pond on my stomach watching tadpoles, jumping off the bluffs into snow chest-deep, enjoying the crunch of leaves on the forest floor or the crackle of ice on the pond, standing in a clearing in the woods and noticing the slant of sun, the musty ground, the sound of birds.... these were the treasures I valued from my youth that my kids did not know. I had gotten lazy in my parenting and "visits" to the woods or fields were not fun for the kids - they're eyes and ears were not trained to love or notice the richness there. They found those places boring.
But here in Haiti, in the countryside near Cap Haitian, with all the pain and hardship in lives around us, I have watched them re-awaken boyhood and discover joy in creation. I have seen them begin to delight in the part of God who creates with such care and detail as to dress a distant tree in nothing but orange flowers for a brief season, a God who delights in designing the dizzying array of grasses that fill the fields and ditches with variety and texture, the God who broods over the deep shades of purple that tint the mountains around us in the afternoon light, the God who chuckles along with the comical vocalizations of the giant black crows, and He who patiently formed the tiny, perfect, fingernails of a fragile baby. I love that my kids are in a place that peaks their affection and curiosity for such things, so when the boys asked if they could take me for a walk to "the most peaceful place ever" I said "yes!".
For the first part of the walk they held my hands like younger versions of themselves and were chatted excitedly while showing me the way.
We walked out the front gate and then to the left, behind the Manna compound, always with our eye on the tall orange tree...
... until we found ourselves standing right under it.
After a bit we continued on, past the bounds of the property, beyond the sugarcane, to a place where the plain opened. There was a small farm plot to the right. Tidy, hand-tooled, mounded rows were planted with sweet potato and squash vines, and a dry stream bed lay cracking on the left. Lazy palms were scattered across the plain, standing tall among scrubby brush, and the gentle mountains rose hazily in the distance on all sides.
Noah put his palm to Elijah's chest stopping him mid-step. "This is the place".
"Shhh. Don't say anything, Mom." Elijah demanded. After some silence, he whispered, "it's so peaceful here." And without a doubt it was. So quiet, except for an occasional cow bawling somewhere far off, the sounds of birds in nearby trees, and the hushed voice of the breeze through sugarcane and coconut palm fronds.
Noah agreed saying, "we should come here every day to enjoy the peace. Isn't it perfect?".
Not long ago this moment would have been impossible. In my rushed world with schedules and appointments and practices and programs and meetings and... well, you know all too well what I mean. No one in our family had time for a quieted soul or a place to soak in the loveliness God had created. Our lives were filled with the white noise of media, busyness, consumerism-- you name it, and I was allowing it to numb and bore my children.
God invites us to come and rest in him but often we are anesthetized to the beauty he has created around us; beauty meant to restore and renew like Psalm 23 talks about, beauty meant to balm hurts and discontent, beauty not just meant for vacations, but for our lives. Might David, the Psalmist have known something about coming near the Lord in such moments?
I am in a land deemed the poorest in the entire world where starvation and unemployment and worst of all, hopelessness are real. Garbage often fills ditches and pollution chokes water and air in many places. Yet even here, there is so much beauty to be found.
Is your life too full for solitude and beauty? Is there too much static noise to stand in a still, silent place and enjoy all that God has created for his and our pleasure?
I invite you to consider what gets in the way of experiencing the creation God blessed us to care for -- it may be the same thing that gets in the way of deeper relationship with God period.
