Artifacts and Scenes from a Country Road

( I haven't figured out how to get this picture down by the SUNNY SIDE UP section...)

I went on a retreat this past weekend. It was a class I signed up for in my Seminary experience called Prayer and Retreat. One of the assignments for the weekend was to take a walk, experience nature, and bring back a scene or artifact that reminded me of my spiritual journey. Here are some things I brought back in the back pocket of my jeans and stuck up the sleeves of my memory:

The following are excerpts from my journal dated Saturday, October 2nd.
THE STONE BARN:
Last night Ben, Maris, Jenni, and I stayed up and snooped around the bookshelves of the Stone Barn (our retreat location). We discovered the "owner lady's" unique expressions of art. She makes, binds, and writes books that are very unique. We read her stories aloud--they struck me as a little bizzare and very, very captivating. Intriguing.
I went for my walk this morning and the first thing I noticed was that the name of the road on which this house resides is called JUSTICE ROAD. This "owner lady's" stories all centered on Justice---the justice played out through the passions of ordinary people. The man who collected road kill and buried it, the people who paid their taxes in rice and beans, the woman who left her husband's shallow, empty life of materialism. How interesting that this woman would build her house on Justice Road.
I looked back at the house from the top of the hill on which I was standing. The Stone Barn sits much like a lighthouse. It is a Kansas Lighthouse. Casting light from the core, radiating out to the land around it. A lighthouse of Justice?

MILKWEED--the scarcity of the resource:
As I walked, I continued to be on the outlook for milkweed. Milkweed is the only place where Monarch Butterflies (caterpillars) reside, as they only eat this plant's leaves (aside: the milkweed is poisonous to almost every other insect--this poison transfers to the Monarch's bloodstream and makes the caterpillar and butterfly poisonous to its predators).
As I walked along this country road in Northcentral Kansas, I saw one lonely plant. I thought, "How scarce this plant is! It would be amazing for a butterfly to even be able to locate this plant out in the middle of this area of Kansas!" This made me sad--the lonliness of this one plant. Then I thought from the perspective of blessing. What joy for the one butterfly who finds this plant in the middle of this milkweed-barren field of Kansas! What relief and welcome!
I pray my lonely moments can be expereinced from this perspective.



SUNNY SIDE UP FLOWERS:
As seen in the picture above, this is a tiny relative of the daisy (maybe the diameter of your thumbnail). Along my walk down the dirt road, I saw flowers just like this....tiny, dainty, miniature daisies....but they were LAVENDER, not white. Let me tell you why all of this description is important.
When I was a child, I can remember playing with these tiny white daisies. My sister and I would play like we were cooking breakfast. The little flowers would serve as eggs---served sunny side up--to our dolls, stuffed animals, and even to each other! Imagine a tea party where eggs are served!
The flowers along the side of this road were just like the ones from my childhood---except they were a marvelously alluring shade of lavender with the typical bright yellow center. They caught my eye---first because of their color--second because they reminded me of my childhood.
I picked a few of these for my show-and-tell back at the barn. Immediately I remembered a comment Precious made during the last PERSONAL ISSUES IN SPIRITUAL DIRECTION class last week. She was reviewing a case with us. Talking through the story of a woman whom she had counseled a few years back. She told us that "Sally" had come in for help, hoping that she could get rid of her symptoms of depression, etc. Hoping she could return to the person whom she had once been. Precious explained that her vision for "Sally" was that she would fully become the person God desired her to be---not return to who she had been.
Hope for the journey. I may just return home vaguely familiar, but now with a presence that is alluringly vibrant. A color that catches the eye. I love the little girl serving Sunny Side Up "eggs" to her stufffed animals. But I long to become the friend, sister, daughter, co-worker, neighbor, lover, mother, journeyer who serves a Sunny Side Up life, heart, and spirit with all the allure and intrigue of this beautiful lavender flower along the side of the road. I am eye-catching in my soul.

STAND STILL AND LISTEN:
I stopped in the middle of the road. There was no chance of any traffic. This is a very secluded area---surrounded with hundreds of acres of farms and fields. When I stopped I became suddenly aware that in the act of STOPPING, I can really experience where I am and what surrounds me. While walking, almost all I hear is my feet, my pants rubbing together, my breath, my thoughts. When I stopped, I felt the breeze on my face, heard the birds in far away branches, saw the insects dancing through the brush, discovered the sand and the sandstone beneath my feet, watched the grass bend, listened to the distant bellow of a cow, noticed cattle eating and drinking only yards away from me, and heard and watched the rippled waters and cautious warnings of a duck on the pond. Hmmmm. Stand still.

I SCARED THE CATTLE:
Peaceful cattle drinking from a stream---startled by my presence. Why did they run--as if I was going to harm them? They almost injured themselves in their overreaction. Chain reaction--stumbling over the rocks, then their own feet, warning all the others. I was only an interested observer of their lives. I had simply walked into their moment, stopped, and took notice. Why run?

HEDGEAPPLES--SO UGLY, BUT SO USEFUL:
Hedgeapples dropped from a tree---scattered all over the intersection of a country road. They are really ugly, you know. Large, hard, putrid shade of greenish yellow, pock-marked. And what are they anyway? A fruit? A pod? A nut? All I know is that their reputation in the world--at least all I've heard about them recently--is that they will fend off spiders unwelcome under your bed and couch, and they could even deter mice and rats from making a nest whereever you place the hedgeapple. Ugly things, so useful for good.