Today we visited the Botanical Gardens. It’s August here, and that means winter. Though not as spectacular as a summer day perhaps, the walk was beautiful nonetheless.
It’s amazing to me how nature never really dies. Granted, in individual cases, yes, but think on a larger scale. Though it was winter, though the conditions seemed inhospitable, there was life. I could smell it all around – new, untouched air.
I once heard a sermon while I was in Seoul about how nature is still serving the purpose that it was created for – to glorify God, to reflect His beauty and His character; to call people to see and to know and to believe. Humans, of course, God’s prized possessions, fell from that top shelf long ago, and we no longer fulfill the purpose to which we were called. But nature remains. It still calls; it still draws out an admiration for a beauty we are unable to replicate no matter how hard we try. And even in a photograph it dulls, and falls flat.
Living in Seoul gave me a new appreciation for beauty, simply because there was none around me. I lived in the middle of a concrete wasteland, devoid of grass, lush trees and really any wildlife to speak of (save for pigeons). Next to God’s creation, our fumbling is filth. And we are filling our world with it. Slowly we are chipping away at the God-ridden gift of nature. Not only have we fallen, but we are determined to take creation down with us. In Seoul I had dreams about beautiful mountains, rivers and lakes only to wake up aching to experience that same beauty again. God is so alive there, in nature, present in every painted petal and oozing out of the trees like sap.
Maybe this is so clear to me now because I was without it for so long. I feel like there’s a meter inside of me, a rain gauge of sorts that fills with beauty of Creation. Last year I experience a drought. And now, with the small amount of rain I’m experiencing, it awakens and renews the part of me that before Seoul, I never knew was there.
While walking through the gardens today, I noticed a few things. There were some flowers in bloom that looked perfectly beautiful, as though they were not at all hindered by their hostile surroundings. There were some that looked to be on the verge of blooming, very much alive and full of potential. There were blooms that were wilting, that had perhaps seen better and easier days. And then there were the dormant creatures; not dead, but not blooming either.
I couldn’t help but think of my spiritual walk as I physically walked through this garden. I thought of my year, and how Korea had been my winter, my hostile environment, my season of discipline and learning. And I wondered which of those plants I was. Did I bloom fully in spite of my circumstances? Did I show potential and readiness to spring to life at a moment’s notice? Did I start out strong but ultimately wither and begin to show signs of defeat? Or did I go dormant altogether, not dead, but unwilling to do anything but wait out the storm?
To be completely honest, I fell into all of those stages at multiple times in Korea. There were moments I felt alive and blooming, but there were also days when all I wanted to do was close everyone out and hide from the pain. There were days I sought God’s will and there were times I wanted nothing to do with it. And there were moments I felt beautiful, but there were hours and days when I felt completely empty.
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