Garbage

I was out walking with my friend today. As we caught up on each other's lives, she told me that she sensed change coming, but she didn't know what and she didn't know how, and she most certainly didn't know when. A word from God, a desire from her heart, a change in location, a change in vocation, all these rumblings of something bigger on the horizon-- a fuzzy horizon. Full of promise and sparkle, but oh, so tricky to make out the details.

As we walked along, I noticed a discarded water bottle, laying in the grass. I thought to myself that I should pick it up. I wasn't there to clean up garbage, and there was no nearby container to place it in. I told myself that later I would come back for the bottle. We walked on, talking of choices, of leaving doors open and taking steps forward, even if you don't know where forward is exactly.

Another empty water bottle appeared in our path. This one I picked up. I can hold one water bottle while I walk. I don't want to be a garbage lady, hands overfull with the discarded refuse of the neighborhood, but I can take care of this one small thing. Do my part, so to speak, in the care of creation.

We'd been walking through the park a while, I thought we'd seen most everything. But just a moment later I saw, under the bridge, an abandoned plastic bag. When I saw the bag, everything just made sense. It's as if God set the first bottle in my path to start me thinking. Put the second one nearby to see if I would act. Once I did, God knew that I could take His hint. He put the bag in the stream and said, "Do this for me today."

So I did.

Together we delighted in the discovery of the bag (who does that, really?). My friend pointed out the first bottle we had seen and added it to the bag. We found a wrapper, a broken ring, a couple other little bits. It felt good to do something to help make the place beautiful. It was nice to see how it all came together. At the end of our walk, I took it to the trash can. No big deal.

Except it was a big deal. It is a metaphor for the very thing we were talking about. Often in life's path, God will place a little something in your path. It may or it may not change anything. But it may be a hint of what's to come. A little later you will find a similarity, maybe something small that spurs you to action.

I think God is continually hinting at us what our lives could be like if we could just see what's right in front of us. Instead of being so focused on the big picture (What career should I pursue? Who should I marry? Where should I live? How do I become famous?) what if we just looked at what's around us and took action when we notice a pattern? Embracing those patterns are the building blocks of our lives: our passions, our dreams, our attempts to make the world a better place.

And when the time is right, God will give us the bag, the piece that holds it all together. We can look back and say, "Oh, God this life is beautiful, but I don't know how I got here." And He will say, "You just followed me, step by step and this beauty is the result."