Each of us has brief encounters, whispers in the night, seeds of ‘something more’ that get beneath our surface and are uncovered again and again. They become an integral part of us yet are never fully comprehended. They call to us, Wake up! God’s kingdom is here. Once we see them, we are never the same again.
One such seed for me was planted by a little girl in Haiti. Despite the concrete harshness of her orphanage home, despite the noise and chaos and the other children’s sicknesses, she was spirited and mischievous. She darted from room to room chasing the other children, tripping them, springing out from around corners, stealing away whatever they might have found, a bit of string, a pebble. She seemed always to be plotting her next point of attack. She tied the 83-year-old volunteer’s shoelaces together and then hid nearby to watch. Greatly perturbed was she that I noticed and rescued the dear lady.
At lunchtime she and the other kids rushed to find places on the floor to get their bowls of mushy beans. It was the only time all day that quiet descended. This was serious business. A couple of minutes later I saw her eyes begin to scan the room and land on a weaker girl whose food was rapidly disappearing. I could tell she was up to something, and I wondered if I should intervene. Sure enough, before the smaller girl could finish her food, the ornery one made her move. What happened next is the pearl that now nests within me. How she dived upon the girl, not to grab her food away but to scrape out the final portion of her own beans into that nearly empty bowl. How she sat back, still hungry but smiling with satisfaction as the smaller girl continued to eat.
How tiny are the hints of the realm we live toward and in. They are nearly hidden, like yeast mixing into the bread of our lives, rising small and mighty. Not to be fully understood but forever rediscovered.
What is hidden, and rising now, within you?
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