THOUGHTS ABOUT PLACE SETTINGS

In the beginning, the elohim created skies and earth.

Welcome back to thee and me.

During my morning perambulation about the neighborhood, I saw a lovely hydrangea flower on a sidewalk, toward the road side, a few feet from a Methodist church. This is the same Methodist church that puts out those pumpkins every autumn.

As I walked, I pondered. My first thought is the one that comes from my childhood: "God put it there for me."

My second thought: "I will take it to my wife."

My third thought: "That first thought is ridiculous."

My next thought: "Someone may have put it there, dropped it there, kicked it there, or the wind blew it there."

Next thought: "If someone does not put it there, then God never puts it there. So it is not ridiculous to say God put it there."

Next: "Isn't it my theology that God works in the world through Being itself?"

I continued on to the place where I loop to walk back home. On my return, I paused to examine the hydrangea. Indeed, the stem appeared to be snipped not torn. The flower looked for all the world to be arranged within that one concrete square on that sidewalk, not dropped or windblown.

Next thought: "It’s a social experiment. A camera is recording to see who passes by it, who stops to look at it, or who takes it."

I looked around for cameras or social scientists hiding in the hedges running along the side of the church wall.

I took the blossom to my wife, set it in a small, empty glass that had once contained Kraft cheese spread, but was being used for smaller portions of orange or apple juice that we like to drink for breakfast. I set it on our dining table beside the place mat where she eats breakfast.

The next morning, I saw a Miller Lite beer can looking for all the world as if it had been arranged as well.  It was set on the same sidewalk square in the same place as the hydrangea.  

First thought:  "God put it there to test me."  

Second thought:  "I'm not picking it up.  I don’t want passersby thinking I drink beer in the morning."

Third thought:  "Tomorrow, I’ll bring a trash bag and pick up all the beer cans I see."

The next morning I forgot the trash bag.  The beer can was there, this time turned over on its side and in the middle of the concrete square.  

First thought:  "Some bicyclist might run over this beer can and wreck."  So I picked it up.  

Second thought, "This is a social science experiment."  I looked along the wall of the Methodist church for cameras and social science students with note pads and pencils hiding in the hedges, and then I looked across the street where a Baptist church could just as easily hide cameras and researchers.

Next thought: "These trucks going past think I’ve been drinking beer at six in the morning."

In three mornings, a special moment of loveliness occurred.  The hydrangea was lovely.  The sidewalk became lovely again after I removed the litter.  Something lovely happened in me.  

Blessings...