Wild
Strawberries
“You can
pick wild strawberries with your eyes closed, locating them by smell,
for they are two parts perfume to one part taste. An hour of
searching might yield a hand full if you're lucky. Wild strawberries
can't be encouraged, nor can they be discouraged. They come to you
unbidden and unearned. They appear, or do not, by the grace of the
sun.”
Hope
Jahren
As soon as the stirrings
of dawn begin to create a network of limbs and leaves visible to the
eye, the owls call to each other that it's time to return to their
nest for the day. For me, hearing them call back and forth is like
finding wild strawberries—grace in action. I can't will them to
sing, can't even know for sure where they are, and sometimes they
don't sing at all. When they do, I respond to them, but my own call
is woefully puny and un-owl-like. I sometimes wonder if they sit on
their limb and ask each other, “Wonder whether that crazy old lady
is going to try and pretend she's an owl today.” Grace brings them,
or they don't come at all.
When I was a kid, there
was a patch of wild strawberries growing beside the softball field.
When we went outside for physical education, I would sit on the bank
behind the dugout and eat them. I shudder to think of all the wild
berries we ate as children without having the slightest inkling of
what they were—they were simply there and looked appealing. Grace
saved us from our own stupidity.
Grace saves us from a lot
of things. Sometimes we are aware of it, but most of the time, we
aren't. Right now, autumn is coming—the equinox is two days away.
The oak trees around my house have already begun dropping leaves and
acorns. I hear them smacking onto the driveway as I sit here on my
porch. I don't know whether you've ever been beaned on the head by a
falling acorn, but I can promise you that it's not a pleasant
experience. I run to my car hoping and praying that the wind doesn't
blow and that grace will see me through the acorn hail-storm if it
does.
Every day that we open
our eyes and climb out of bed provides opportunities to
experience grace. Pope Francis says, “Grace is not part of
consciousness; it is the amount of light in our souls, not knowledge
nor reason.” It's not ours to wield, not ours to encourage or
discourage, but it is ours to appreciate. I hope today you will be
aware of the Grace that, unbidden and unearned, is yours every minute
of every day. It's a gift from your Creator.
In the Spirit,
Jane
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