Out Our Way:  The lilies of the field

John Bruington

Out our way, most of us know the joke, "What do you get when you play a country western song backward?" You get your wife back, your dog back, your horse back, and your truck back. But sometimes that record doesn't go in reverse and you just keep losing one part of your life after another. As some of you know, I am presently dealing with my life as a country western song that just keeps going on and on. In addition to all the rest, I have also spent the past few weeks in the hospital down in Great Falls and am now home recovering from surgery.

A few summers back, I took a particularly nasty spill when Goliath lost his footing as we galloped up a ridge and although he recovered his balance, I did not. I had just enough time to say to myself. "Goodness, I believe I am falling off again" - or something a bit cruder as I watched Goliath's massive legs go by on my descent to terra firma.

At any rate, I recall the realization that Goliath was a big horse and the ground was a long way down as I came in for a three-point landing on some very hard soil. I also recall not being able to move for a second or two, my whole body numb but my brain screaming. "Wait for it! This is going to hurt!" My brain was right for once, and in a millisecond I felt the impact. Like Roy Rodgers observed : After a while you don't bounce when you hit ... you just go splat! Fortunately nothing was broken, but I did indeed feel like roadkill hit by a tank about then.

Unable - and unwilling - to move for a few moments, I took the time to look about and noticed the flowers of the field now at eye-level. Funny I had not noticed them before, but when you have to look up to see a flower, you start to take notice of such things. It really was a pretty little thing I was staring at which had so suddenly been brought to my attention.

Now in an emotional and spiritual version of a similar wreck, lying flat on my back and wondering if I will ever get up again, I begin to notice the flowers of the field around me today. Friends who immediately came to my aid, who drove down to Great Falls to see me, who came down and drove me home, and who called and emailed and offered their help immediately. Folks who fed my cats, cleaned my house and took care of the newspapers and the mail. 

Out on the sidewalk by the church, the kids wrote in the wet cement a few years back "WWJD?" What Would Jesus Do? Well, I think I know because I have seen Christ in action. Christ came in and fed the cats, cleaned and vacuumed the carpet and arranged for my mail and papers to be brought in. Christ drove all the way down to Great Falls to see me, and Christ made the trip again just to pick me up and get me home.

Christ took care of leading worship, sang hymns and prayed for me while I was in the hospital. Christ wrote me notes and drew me pictures and texted me to say everything was going to be OK and not to worry about the church, He'd take care of it. I may have gotten tossed pretty hard, but I discovered the ground was covered with flowers. 

Back in my day as the "big church pastor," I rode tall in the saddle. But it is here amongst the lilies of the field I found the Garden I had preached about all those years. I expect I will get up and back in the saddle again, but I know I will never forget the flowers I discovered had always been there. It's sort of a rough way to be awakened to what is there before you, but better than never seeing them at all.

The "church" is not a building or an institution - it is the people living out the gospel message in their daily lives and reflecting the love of heaven in their love of neighbor. I am so lucky to be surrounded by so many of God's lilies of the field!

(John Bruington is pastor of the Presbyterian Church in Havre. Copies of the "Out our Way" column and cartoon, as well as his weekly cartoon and children's message series "Bruin-Town Tales," can be viewed at the church website: http://www.havrepres.org. The book "Out Our Way: Theology Under Saddle" is also available at amazon.com.)