garden

it was the sunflowers

Posted on by Grace Day

I suspected the sunflowers from the very beginning, and in the end, it turned out to be true, my suspicions proved to be correct – it had been the sunflowers all along. Now sunflowers probably seem like they should be the least likely suspects when any type of wrongdoing or crime occurs. After all, they are so cheerful. They don’t seem capable of deceit or malice of any kind. At least that’s what I’ve always thought, until now. I believed sunflowers to be a trustworthy flower.

But that all changed with tonight’s unexpected mystery drama. It started as an ordinary errand – me running into Meijer to pick up just a few things before heading home. It ended with me at the self-checkout scanner, discovering that I no longer had my credit card in my hand. Ok, that requires some explanation.

I entered the store, car keys and credit card in hand. Normally those two items are in a pocket of whatever I’m wearing at the moment, but my attire was void of pockets and it was just a quick stop, not major grocery shopping. I made my rounds quickly and was headed for self-checkout. At this point I passed the flower/plant area located right across from the checkout and seeing a large selection of beautiful sunflowers there, I decided to treat myself to some sunflowers to brighten my kitchen and keep me company. (sunflowers are supposed to be good company, being known as a friendly flower and all)

So I began pulling out different bunches of sunflowers from the black buckets of water that held them, so as to better compare the blooms and decide which bouquet I wanted to take home. My decision finally made after some brief agonizing over which was the prettiest, the freshest, of all the bunches of sunflowers, I proceeded to the checkout line. There I relaxed, pleased with my impulse purchase, as well as with the speed with which I had navigated my way through the large store, successfully selecting all the items on my list, thereby completing my task. I could cross it off my to-do list. However, my relaxed and self-satisfied state of being was abruptly cut short.

Imagine my shock when I wheeled my cart up to the scanner and discovered only my car keys in my left hand, no credit card! I could not check out. I needed to backtrack, to retrace my steps in order to see where I had dropped my card. Of course, the sunflowers were my first stop, but I did not find my card there. So next I went to produce, specifically the strawberries. There I had had a brief conversation with a stranger, a fellow shopper. We lamented together the lower quality and the higher price of the strawberries currently, as they are not really “in season” anymore.

She and her husband were still in this area as I sped through, and she became aware of my situation. She was very kind and concerned, looking with me in the area where we had stood and talked. Then I was off to continue my reverse route in the store. Not finding my card, I began to worry that it would fall into unscrupulous hands who would then use it to purchase all kinds of things that I could in no way afford. I thought of the melting ice cream in my shopping cart. (priorities?) I thought about checking with the store to see if a good Samaritan had perhaps found my card and turned it in.

Then I came to my senses and made a plan. Leaving my cart at the checkout place in the care of an attendant, I went to my car to get my phone and a different credit card. I called to report my card lost and put a “lock” on it. Then I got back in an even longer line to check out. After checking out, I couldn’t give up the feeling that my card was still somewhere in the store, as yet undiscovered. So I decided to take one last tour of the store in search of my lost card.

This time my search was calmer because my card was already “locked”, no one could use it. I definitely got my steps in as I walked again everywhere I had been previously. You can cover a lot of ground in big stores like Meijer. I’ll never know my step count because I don’t have one of those devices, but I’m guessing it would have been an impressive number if a count were kept. So I’ll count extra steps as an extra blessing for the day.

Then, because my eyes were on the ground, I found a penny! Somehow that’s always a big deal to me. Don’t ask me why, must be a childhood thing. Also, I ran into the kind lady and her husband again, as they were still in the store. I thanked her and assured her that things were taken care of even though I was still searching. This time I went in the order in which I had shopped, instead of the reverse order, which means my very last stop of my very last search, was – you guessed it – the sunflowers.

I scanned the floor and the tables on which the black buckets of water filled with the bouquets of fresh flowers sat. I had looked into the two buckets holding the sunflowers previously, but this time I stuck my hand down into the water among the stalks of the sunflowers. Nothing in the first bucket, BUT – in the second bucket as I felt around, reaching all the way to the bottom of the bucket, I felt it! My credit card! I was right all along. It had slipped out of my hand when I was pulling out sunflowers to examine before deciding which ones I wanted to buy. This was the last thing I did before entering the checkout line.

The sunflowers were harboring, actually hiding my credit card all this time. But they did proffer a peace offering of sorts. When I pulled my credit card out of the water, a packet of that stuff you put in the water to keep your flowers fresh longer, came out with it! The sunflowers I had purchased, didn’t have one of those packets attached, so perhaps this was their attempt at appeasement, their apology for pick pocketing my credit card? (and for melting my ice cream, for causing me stress, panic and worry)

As I write this, the guilty sunflowers have been cut down to size and are sitting in a ball jar on my kitchen table. They certainly are a cheerful, friendly flower but I don’t know if I can ever look at them the same way again. We’ll see how I feel about them in the morning. Right now they remind me of the short-lived panic I experienced when I realized I had lost my credit card. How easily my peace and composure were shattered – until I came to my senses and realized there were readily available solutions to this problem. I was not in danger, no one was hurt.

It was a minor, unexpected inconvenience – a mystery that was rather quickly solved. My Heavenly Father is with me in the deep hurts and tough circumstances of this life. But He also cares about my mundane mystery of the missing credit card – He provided the kindness of a stranger, a penny, extra steps and that stuff for the water to help keep my guilty sunflowers living and lovely longer. (although, if I had not decided last minute to buy sunflowers, none of this would have happened – maybe there’s something to be said for sticking to one’s list with no deviation? – no, what fun would that be?)

I sure was filled with all kinds of worry and panic though, when I first realized my credit card was no longer in my hand but somewhere in the very large, very full of people store. In fact, I was surprised at how quickly I became fearful and anxious. And in this life, there is always something, usually many things, that can make you and me fearful and anxious. But our Heavenly Father does not want us to live full of fear and worry. Jesus told us this –

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your Heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your Heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” (Matthew 6:25-34)

The sunflowers sitting on my kitchen table are God’s “lilies of the field”, clothed in perfect splendor. When I look at my sunflowers, instead of remembering my temporarily misplaced credit card and my accompanying panic and worry – I will enjoy their cheerful beauty and the peace their presence brings me because they proclaim God’s infinite care for all of His creation, including me. God takes care of them. He is taking care of me day by day.

It was the sunflowers who hid my credit card – it is the sunflowers who shout God’s goodness and glory from my kitchen table –

sincerely, Grace Day

front porch people

Posted on by Grace Day

Are you a front porch person? Or are you a back deck dweller? My grandparents were front porch people. I remember spending time with them on their front porch. Grandpa reading the paper, Grandma reading a magazine or talking to whoever was with us on the porch. I liked the front porch because of the glider, that’s what we called it anyway. The glider was a piece of furniture kind of like a couch, but it moved back and forth like a swing, hence the name glider. This was my preferred seat on the front porch. While the grownups wiled away the hours in conversation, I spent the time moving back and forth on the glider. It was rhythmical, it was soothing. I could watch the world go by and dream my dreams, while my grandparents and mom talked over the events of the day and waved to neighbors and passersby, often engaging them in conversation.

That’s the thing about front porches – they are inviting. They are open to invitation and engagement with other people. Front porches are the places where people can hang out and catch up with each other on the day’s events. Or at least they used to do that. But as times changed, there was a trend toward building back decks and these became the places where family would go to spend time together outdoors. Now back decks are more secluded than front porches. They are not visible from the street, so they don’t provide the opportunity to interact with neighbors and other passersby that front porches provide.

There is an older neighborhood that I walk in often. The houses there are close together and they all have some type of a front porch. However, walking in newer neighborhoods, I notice the homes are further apart and the front porches tend to be small or nonexistent. There is no place to put rocking chairs, no room to sit, no space in which to people watch and visit with family and friends. Maybe that’s why front porch sitting is an activity of the past? All the front porches have vanished, forcing front porch people to become back deck dwellers.

Or did people first start adding back decks, which caused a migration to the back decks of our neighborhoods, leading people to abandon their front porches in favor of becoming back deck dwellers, thus rendering front porches unnecessary and obsolete? Who can say which came first? But the current reality is that front porches don’t seem as prevalent as they once were and by extension front porch people are a dying breed.

It would seem that back deck dwellers are more isolated from their neighbors and others, while front porch people tend to make the connections that allow them to create community where they live. “Setting a spell” on the front porch with your neighbors provides the perfect opportunity to get to know those that live around you and forge bonds of friendship. Who would have guessed that front porches have played such a pivotal role in creating community and combating isolation? Which is why it is too bad that front porches seem to be disappearing from our modern day houses.

Today isolation seems to be on the rise. We are more disconnected than ever before, even from those who live closest to us. Ironically, we are more connected via the internet, but less connected personally in the real world. Cyberspace is the new reality for many, taking the place of the person to person connection that has always been our truest reality. So bring back the front porches, I say! And with them bring back all the former front porch people! And let’s welcome in a whole new generation of front porch persons as well.

Some of my fondest childhood memories are of the times I spent on my grandparents’ front porch gliding on the glider, eating Grandma’s cookies and listening to all the various conversations swirling around me, teaching me about life even though I was totally unaware that was what was happening at the time. There are a lot of life lessons you can learn on the front porch if you are listening. (of course back then, there were no ear buds, no cell phones, no video games – so we actually looked each other in the eye and paid attention to the person speaking)

That’s how you got the latest local news of the day – in person on the front porch. Of course some would call this gossip, but either way, be it news or gossip, it was delivered in person, not on Instagram, or Facebook or Twitter, or some other social media platform. Today we look at our phones to see what’s scrolling and trending. Turns out it’s gossip disguised as news, just like on the front porch. I guess some things don’t change after all. Just method of delivery has changed from in-person to online.

Maybe that’s why front porches are no longer so important. We can get our news/gossip from the internet, so who needs real life neighbors anyway? We find ourselves attempting to build community with people we won’t necessarily ever meet, rather than building relationships with the people living around us that we could interact with personally if we made the choice to do so. And that’s where front porches come in handy, providing that perfect low-tech platform for human interaction and conversation to take place.

Whether it be the friendly front stoop or the spacious veranda with rocking chairs all lined up, a front porch by any name is a good place to pass the time with family, friends and neighbors. Jesus said the second greatest commandment is – “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Well, I can’t love my neighbor if I don’t know my neighbor, now can I? To this end, the front porch seems an invaluable asset in this pursuit of knowing and loving the people that live around me.

With loneliness born of isolation on the rise, maybe it’s time for back deck dwellers to become front porch people once again. The connections and community that come out of ordinary front porch conversations are often extraordinary. These grassroots relationships can carry a community forward in creating a place where neighbors are no longer strangers but friends who look out for one another. A change for the better. A way to alleviate the isolation people feel that is so prevalent today. And it all starts on our front porches! That’s reason enough to pull up a chair and set a spell – reason enough to become a front porch person. Because it’s front porch people who will change this world for the better, one conversation at a time, one listening ear at a time, one kind, encouraging word at a time.

sincerely, Grace Day