Bluebonnets

Reflections on Luke 24:8-11

Having found the tomb empty and being told that Jesus had risen, the women share their epiphany with the other disciples:

... returning from the tomb, they told all this to the eleven and all the rest.  Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told this to the apostles.  But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them.

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In the spring every region has its particular beauty.  I am from the northeast and we glory in the tulips and the hyacinth and then the forsythia, the rhododendron and the azalea.  And that is not even to mention the flowering trees, the dogwoods and the cherry trees.  We are spoiled in the northeast.  There is so much color to our spring.  In other parts of the country spring comes less auspiciously. 

I was in Austin, Texas in April of 2010.  I was attending a conference with friends, two of whom are Texas natives.  I wasn’t expecting much from Texas in April.  What kind of spring could Texas possible have?  I confess, I came with prejudice in my heart.  Texas and I are not on good terms.  I have yet to forgive the state for the disaster that was my sixth grade year.  (That is another story)  So suffice it to say, I was not expecting much from my visit to Austin.  However, I had been told, more than once, that Texas bluebonnets were a sight to see. 

I flew into San Antonio, where my friend, Katheryn, pastors a church.  She picked me up at the airport and we traveled together by minivan to Austin, north on Highway 35.  We had a lot of catching up to do.  There was talk of the glory days of seminary and of course crazy church stuff, friends we had in common and enemies too.  Pastors so rarely get the chance to vent, it was a shame we didn’t have farther to travel.  There was so much to say.  In the middle of one long tale, out of nowhere, Katheryn gasped.  Literally G A S P E D.  I was looking out the passenger side window, away from Katheryn, lost in thought, focused on the trials and tribulations of church service, when Katheryn unexpectedly took in a whole lot of air.  My heart nearly jumped out of my chest.  I was sure that I was no more than a second or two from meeting Jesus face to face and I didn’t want that to happen while I was telling tales out of school.  I snapped my head to the left, in Katheryn’s direction.  She was pointing to her left, out the driver’s side window.  “BLUEBONNETS!” she exclaimed.

Are you kidding me?!  It took a moment before I could make the transition from impending death to wildflowers.  It took more than a moment for my heart rate to drop back to near normal.  In the mean time, before I could respond, I saw them.  Little specks of blue scattered in and among the tall grass on the median strip that separated the northbound and southbound lanes.  Little flowers, not in mass, not bunched together in a blaze of glory, but scattered randomly, haphazardly, maybe two-dozen peaking out in a sea of tall grass.

All I could say was, “oh,” with a tone of relief, rather than awe.  While it was certainly better than death on a Texas highway, and it obviously meant something to Katheryn, to be honest, it was underwhelming.  I have to say, the build up was better than the reality.  I expected a sea of blue outlined in grass, not a sea of grass with specks of blue.  I expected a wildflower patch like you see on the highways in the southeast where dense, purposeful swatches of color are framed by highway on-ramps and exits. 

That is the nature of an epiphany.  It is as individual as our taste in wildflowers.  The Holy Spirit opens one person to a truth, a revelation, through a walk in the woods or the words of a song or a happenstance at work, any of which on any other day or for any other person might convey nothing out of the ordinary and even if that walk or song or happenstance is shared with another, one might have an enormous God-moment, while the other remains unaware and untouched.  Katheryn’s reaction to the beauty she saw in the bluebonnets drew from her a physical and audible reaction, a gasp, as if to say, "If you saw what I just saw, surely you would gasp too."  But I did see what she saw and I was not moved in the same way or even moved at all. 

There is a truth in that simple scenario that speaks to our desire to force our epiphanies on others.  We believe that if we can lead someone to the place of our own revelation, if we can point to what we saw or heard, put words to what we felt or what we had, in a holy moment, come to understand, then others will see or hear or feel or understand it too.  If I was moved, you will be too.  We want to share our epiphanies and we think we can make it happen.  But an epiphany is a work of the Holy Spirit, not a human creation.  It finds us when the time is just right.  It finds us in God’s time.  We cannot manufacture or control it.  It happens to us, not because of us and subsequently we can not make it happen for others. 

We can’t force the Spirit’s hand, just as the Spirit chooses not to force our will.  The Holy Spirit woos individual hearts and minds toward holy truths at God’s pace, a timing synched to our own individual personalities and circumstances.  It may take a lifetime for some to see the beauty of God’s creation on the median of a Texas highway, while others seem ready to oooooh and ahhhhhh at birth.  This, should we grasp it, gives us cause to be patient with those who cannot share our epiphanies, who fail to be impressed with what moves us to the core.  The Holy Spirit isn’t finished with them yet, just as the Spirit isn’t finished with us.  Epiphanies come when we are not looking, not expecting.  They take us by surprise.  They make us gasp.  If a co-worker, acquaintance, family member or beloved friend, cannot share the enormity of your revelation or inspiration, it doesn’t mean that they never will, only that this time is your time not theirs.  This epiphany is for you, a gift from the God who loves you, who knows you, who created you.  Their time will come and perhaps already has with a different message, another insight, something you can’t quite see yet, but perhaps someday you will. 

Our epiphanies are individual affairs.  The truth is, you can lead a person to bluebonnets, but you can’t make them gasp!

Katheryn sent me this picture just the other day.

Apparently a rainy winter has made for a spectacular spring in Texas this year. 

Had I seen this, I may have GASPED!