Minutes of Meetings with God and with Myself
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The Daffodils and the Compost Pile ...

We have a compost pile some distance from the house, behind our out buildings. The pile is at the edge of the five or six acre area that we don't mow. It isn't a particularly big compost pile, but it is the place where we dump the fruit and vegetable scraps, the egg shells, leaves, the occasional coffee grounds, soft plant trimmings and other stuff that we understand are supposed to be part such a heap of rotting remains. The thing is far enough away that if it stinks (which means our pile isn't "working" right) or attracts varmints, it doesn't cause us problems at the house. Some folks I know carefully manage their compost piles. They are pretty strict about what gets added, when stuff gets added, and then they turn the rotting conglomeration of stuff at precise intervals. They assume that a well managed pile is going to make better fertilizer for their flower and vegetable gardens. And, they are probably right. I will admit that I am not a particularly enthusiastic composter. For a couple of years we kept a tightly covered bucket under the kitchen sink to hold our bio-degradables (a fancy name for table scraps) until one of us (usually me) would walk down to the compost pile to empty it. But, it got hard for my wife to convince me to do that job when it needed to be done; and, I have been known to just trash the fruit and vegetable trimmings or skins so I wouldn't have to carry the bucket out back through the cold or snow. Now, we tend to handle our compost pile with a regimen of benign neglect. Sometimes it gets fed a little and sometimes it gets a little attention, and other times it doesn't. However, the pile still seems to be "working". It sits there and does it's "thing," bio-degrading, rotting, making fertilizer out of stuff that otherwise has no use. I understand that if a compost pile is working the way it should, it will be "hot", too hot for most things to grow in. The pile breaks organic matter down, in part, by burning it up; it doesn't use a flame, it makes a steady, persistent heat that is too much for most plants to handle. One winter, our pile was working so hard that the snow kept melting off of it. On the one hand, the compost pile is a place that makes the stuff that helps things grow; but, on the other hand, while it is making that fertilizer for growth, the pile, itself, is not a hospitable place for things to grow. It is a case of: a carefully measured amount helps, but having too much hurts. I had not visited our compost pile through most of the winter. We have abandoned keeping the bucket under the sink, so there was not much reason to wander out that way through the cold and snow. The only reason I had been to the pile since around Valentine's Day was to pitch a melon on it which had turned all too quickly into a biology ex-periment before we could eat it. I had hoped that melon would be part of an excellent meal, but it ended up as real good fuel for the compost pile. When the weather began to give its first hints of Spring, when it got a little bit warm and sunny, my dear wife bundled up and began work on her flower beds. Part of her ritual for getting things ready for the new flowers is to take off the mulch and bedding that she had put down to protect the plants from the cold and ice. As she cleared her flower beds, she took the winter mulch and bedding to dump it on the compost pile. While my wife was outside, I was mostly inside, struggling to get ready for our celebration of the Resurrection. I will admit that I had started to whine about how much difficulty I was having in capturing something of the awesome power, the surprising unexpectedness, the utter simplicity and the amazing beauty of the Resurrection. One night, my dear wife said: "I may be able to help you out, but you'll have to wait until I can show you something!" The next day, we made our way down to the compost pile. Clearly, the pile had been "working". Mostly, what I saw was the barren brown of an active compost heap. There was one important, colorful exception. Not far from the top of the pile, all alone, a small cluster of daffodils were in lovely, yellow bloom. I counted four blossoms as we just stood there in silence and allowed what we were seeing to "sink in." We have no idea how the flowers got there or how they survived or how they managed to push their way to life and beauty in such a hostile environment; it's a mystery. There they were, where they were not supposed to be. The blossoms were awesome in their own delicate, yet subtly forceful way. Seeing those flowers reminded me that God has ways of bringing life to full bloom in the most un-expected places. Often those are ways that are totally beyond our abilities to explain. Jesus' Resurrection was one of those occasions when God worked the miracle of life when it appeared that death and barrenness had won the day. We are post-Resurrection people. We look back knowing that Jesus left the tomb, alive again. We operate on almost 2,000 years of memory and meaning that Christians have of that blessed morn-ing so long ago. It's too easy for us to forget that those who were closest to Jesus, who shared his daily activities, who saw his arrest, who saw him hang until the life drained out of him, were those who thought all was lost because he was dead. At the empty tomb on that Resurrection morning, those people did not have an easy time sorting through what was going on. It was all too unexpected, too awesome, too simple, and too beautiful for them to let it sink in right away. All they anticipated was rotting remains, barrenness, no life. They discovered an empty tomb, a divine mes-senger, and a cryptic message. They had a great deal of trouble seeing that God has ways of bring-ing life to full bloom in the most unexpected places. The Holy Scriptures tell us that they were afraid. However, those men and women, back then, finally met the Risen Lord; they discovered Jesus' new life; and they discovered their own new lives, empowered by the Holy Spirit. Once again they took up the work of living and preaching "The Good News of God's Kingdom." Our lives have a knack for going awry. Too often, things do not go the way we want or expect. It is easy for our daily existence to take on the character of a compost pile; all seems barren with nothing but rotting remains. At their worst, our lives seem to be a form of crucifixion; we become sure we feel the very life draining out of us; we have that horrible sense that all is lost and we are as good as in the grave. We may not perceive any opportunity for life or growth. We cannot allow ourselves to forget, God has ways of bringing life to full bloom in the most unexpected places. Long ago, there was an empty tomb. Today, there are daffodils on the compost pile. Both are witnesses; God will triumph!