It’s at this time of year that I eagerly anticipate the flowering of the aloes. Red and yellow candelabras of glorious colour flourish with flamelike vibrance. Plants which I usually ignore as I pass, disliking their twisted, dusty ugliness, suddenly become the delight of a morning walk. A weekend drive inland becomes a journey through a bejewelled winterscape.
I’ve been looking for the first signs of buds over the last couple of weeks; peering at green leaves and succulent bushes hoping to see a spindly shoot emerging from the foliage. I haven’t seen anything to excite me. Until a couple of days ago.
Walking beside the beach, in an area known for its display of winter aloes, I noticed a couple of stalks sticking out of the top of a one or two plants. Stalks with buds. Not yet flowering, but with a dusting of yellow around the tip. Flames in the making.
Now I’d caught of glimpse of some aloe potential, I noticed a few other signs of winter activity.
Driving home, I passed a neighbour’s front verge. Her aloes — the ones with broad, grey-green leaves — have shoots pushing skyward, little nobbles visible where blossoms will soon appear.
I rushed home. Maybe the aloes in my garden are also bursting with this new life. I was disappointed. Not a shoot in sight. And then I got busy, with the washing up and the wet towels and making tea and eating breakfast.
Until I sat outside later that morning, perched on the edge of a garden wall, my feet dangling over the edge and a cup of coffee in hand. The ocean sparkled in clear, after-the-rain sunshine. The waves rolled and crashed below, spray dancing upwards in a gentle breeze.
My phone was inside. I wasn’t reading a book. I sat and looked. And I saw.
Below me, one of a cluster of those grey ‘elephant ears’ had sprouted a stem of buds almost a metre high. How had I missed it? From another plant, one I didn’t even know flowered, a stalk with a cluster of bell-like buds soaked up the sunshine.
I wasn’t missing out; my garden wasn’t letting me down. I was simply too busy looking everywhere else to really see.
See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland. (Isaiah 43:19)
My experiences in nature so often reflect my journey with Jesus. I’m looking for the next big thing, watching for an answer to prayer, or a significant expression of successful faith — and failing to see what he’s doing right in front of me, right now.
If I’m honest, I’m distracted, searching in the wrong places for signs that God is at work. I notice what he’s doing for everyone else, allow envy to creep into my heart, nurture disappointment and frustration. I allow busy-ness to dominate and tiredness to flourish. I forget to pause, to pray, to take stock. To see.
My garden at home isn’t falling behind in the aloe-flowering stakes. And even if it was, does it matter? While I wait, I can delight in the blossoms displayed elsewhere. When Jesus blesses another, opens the way to exciting adventures or daring exploits, I can clap and cheer. He hasn’t left me behind or left me out.
Even now, it springs up. The question is — do I perceive it? Am I looking without seeing or do I see? Am I preoccupied with me, or occupied with Jesus?
Jesus lived a normal, wood-working life for thirty years before he gathered his disciples and started his ministry. Did he practice the silence of seeing when hunched over a lathe, when picking a splinter from his finger, when listening to Dad whistle and Mom sing?
Once he was famous, and in high demand, Jesus still knew what to do, where to go. Stillness was his habit, and seeing, not just looking, his desire. He lay down the work and broke from the people, hiding out in the place of prayer with his Father. He welcomed the crowds with open arms of love and compassion; he ran to his Father with open heart and quietened mind. Was it in those moments that God dared him to walk on water, to feed thousands with a packed lunch, to watch for the widow with her two small coins? Did he see the cross — and the glory beyond?
Did he see me — and you — and call out, “Be alert, be present. I’m about to do something brand-new. It’s bursting out! Don’t you see it?”