Lilac Raindrop Sermon

I woke up this morning jazzed about looking for fiddlehead ferns to photograph, even though it's getting rather late in the season. My husband had my car, so I turned my attention to what was right in front of me: rain-kissed lilacs. I had a certain focus and composition in mind, but it wasn't until I looked at the photographs afterward that I realized what I had captured.

It wasn't a fiddlehead fern, but it was exactly what I needed. A sermon in a raindrop, delivered clearly and instantaneously through an image. I returned to the lilac tree with a fresh focus.

I observed raindrops clinging to lilac blossoms for a long time and fixated on one, in particular. Gravity was pulling it, and it looked as if it was just about to fall, but it didn't. It kept hanging on to its existence as a raindrop.

And why wouldn't it, when it contains everything around it - blossoms, leaves, the lilac tree, and even the blue sky and the sun itself? Can you imagine how hard it must be to let go of everything that has defined you? Everything around you that has had a role in building your identity? Everything you find lovely, including the ability to reveal to the world around you its own beauty and magnificence so it may see and know itself? Who will give your world that kind of love once you are gone?

But the truth is, you are water. You are not only what is encapsulated in your body during your brief existence as a droplet. You are so much more than that. You are the ocean. And even more! There is nothing that isn't you.

A raindrop does not last forever. It doesn't last long at all. Eventually it will drop and be absorbed by the ground below and help to sustain life, or it will evaporate in the heat of the new day. Either way, it continues to interact with life, to be part of life, to be life itself. It does not end, even though it ceases to be a raindrop on a particular lilac blossom.

And that is the natural order of life here on earth. All things come and go in their own time. And yet, what a blessing to see and love the universe reflected in a raindrop for the brief eternity it exists as such.

The lilacs are in full bloom now. We wait for this fragrant week or two all year long, and it always ends before we are ready. A couple days ago, I presented my mom with a bouquet of lilacs. I held them close to her nose so she could inhale the intoxicating perfume, and with what little voice and energy she had, she exclaimed, "Oh, how lovely!" I'm grateful she made it to lilac season. And I'm also grateful for the lilac breeze that whispers, "All Is Well."

Because, in the grand scheme of things, it is.

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