As they were growing this year, I noticed that one especially tall plant was leaning precariously toward the sidewalk. I knew I would have to stake it, if it were not to topple over onto the concrete. But I procrastinated, and as it grew and the buds got larger and heavier, I wondered why it was still upright. So one day I walked over to take a look.

What I saw was both simple and wonderful. The nearby cabbage palm had caught the lily in a loop of fiber and held it up – an almost invisible support. (When you see the pictures, you might think that I had tied a string to the lily, but it was all done without any human intervention.)

We have been witness lately, directly or indirectly, to enormous disruption and destruction: war, earthquakes, volcano, a cataclysmic oil spill. Is this disharmony within nature (including human nature) the ultimate reality, we may ask?

No. I am convinced that each small glimpse of beauty or harmony is a pledge of the beauty and harmony at the heart of all things.

“I get by with a little help from my friends,” sang the Beatles. And so do we all, whether we know it or not – even if we think we have no friends. This interdependence, which we human beings (or perhaps more to the point, we lift-yourself-up-by-your-own-bootstrap-Americans) tend to forget, is part of the loveliness of creation.

Saint Ignatius of Loyola might agree with the Beatles on this point: we do somehow make it through life with the help of both human and non-human friends. During the First Week of the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius, there is an intense awareness of personal sinfulness and also an awareness of the blessed relationship between the sinner and the rest of creation:

Ignatius speaks of “a cry of wonder accompanied by surging emotion as I pass in review all creatures. How is it that they have permitted me to live, and have sustained me in life! Why have the angels, though they are the sword of God’s justice, tolerated me, guarded me, and prayed for me! Why have the saints interceded for me and asked favours for me! And the heavens, sun, moon, stars, and the elements; the fruits, birds, fishes and other animals–why have they all been at my service!

The spiritual exercises of St. Ignatius, trans. by Louis J. Puhl, S.J. (Chicago: Loyola, 1951) [60].

The deeper reality at the core of creation is not our sinfulness, nor the very real pain and disturbances that can shake us to the core, nor the sorrows that can weigh on us until we feel we must break apart – but the beauty and harmony of God, as experienced in the communion of God’s holy creatures.

We get by, in spite of everything, even in spite of death, by the grace of God – and like the lily, with a little help from our friends.

This was the moment when Before
Turned into After, and the future’s
Uninvented timekeepers presented arms.

This was the moment when nothing
Happened. Only dull peace
Sprawled boringly over the earth.

This was the moment when even energetic Romans
Could find nothing better to do
Than counting heads in remote provinces.

And this was the moment
When a few farm workers and three
Members of an obscure Persian sect
Walked haphazard by starlight straight
Into the kingdom of heaven.

U. A. Fanthorpe, “BC:AD”

I am convinced that most of us stumble into the reign of God, not because of our sterling virtue or our skill in prayer, but in spite of ourselves,

Sandro Botticelli, "The Mystical Nativity" (detail showing an angel pointing out the Christ child to the shepherds), National Gallery, London

thanks to a loving guidance of which we may be totally unaware. And sometimes where we find ourselves – what turns out to be filled with grace and glory – is not at all what we would have expected.

You might enjoy listening to Paul Simon’s song “Graceland,” which is ostensibly about a trip to Elvis Presley’s house in Memphis.  As the song goes on, however, one realizes that it is really about something far bigger and infinitely deeper. Here is one verse:

There is a girl in New York City,
Who calls herself the human trampoline,
And sometimes when I’m falling flying
Or tumbling in turmoil I say
Whoa, so this is what she means,
She means we’re bouncing into Graceland…

The shepherds and the Magi “walked haphazard” or bounced into Graceland. And so do we bounce — usually awkwardly — into the glory of God where we are expected, longed for, and welcomed.
In the words of Paul Simon:

Maybe I’ve a reason to believe
We all will be received
In Graceland

A few days ago the back doorbell rang. I went to answer it, but no one was there. Then as I stood there it rang again — with no one pushing it. That in itself was no mystery. Sometimes a particularly vigorous finger on the button will make the bell stick, so that it keeps ringing over and over until someone unsticks it. Still, I did hesitate to open the door, in case someone was hiding behind one of the cars or just around the corner of the building, ready to pounce on me as soon as the door was opened.

So I peered around as far as I could see through the little window in the back door. All of a sudden my eye landed on something new in the driveway: a blue and gray concrete block. What was that doing there? Then I thought, oh, just a silly prank. Some kids left the block, rang the doorbell, and ran off.

But I obviously couldn’t leave the block where it was, so out I stomped, heedless of anyone who might be lurking with criminal intent. I bent down to pick up the block—which refused to budge. I tried again, and this time my flabby muscles managed to shift it far enough from the middle of the driveway that it no longer posed a hazard to people or cars. I returned, annoyed, to the house.

Several days later, Carol , the formerly homeless, mentally ill woman (see “Being Scorned” and “Rocking and Bobbing“) came by, and the mystery was solved.

“Did you like the pretty brick I brought you?”

“How did you get it here?” asked Sister Elizabeth.

“On my bike,” she said. “I carried it with one hand and rode with the other.”

The concrete block that I had barely been able to move and that we didn’t know how to dispose of, a worthless hunk of debris just a moment before, had taken on new value. It was a gift!

It is not always apparent at first glance that an object or an event is a gift. And it requires especially sensitive eyes to perceive that a vexation may really be a blessing bestowed on us with love.

‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.’(2 Corinthians 12:9)

“All is grace.”
“Tout est grâce.”
(Thérèse of Lisieux)

No matter how hard the highway engineers work to make the road flat, it doesn’t stay that way for long. Eventually the shifting earth itself takes over, and you find yourself rocking and bobbing along at 70 miles an hour, while all around you the other vehicles — cars, SUVs, 18-wheelers, motorcycles — rock and bob like boats on the water. When you reach the city streets, the rocking and bobbing continues, but slows down to 30 miles an hour or so.

So while I drove toward the city, lifting and dropping more or less rhythmically, I pondered the unsteadiness of human life and how human beings dip and fall and bob again to the surface. I thought of Carol, the mentally ill homeless lady who comes to our door from time to time and who had recently been staying at the house of someone she called the “old lady.” The last time Carol came to the door, I asked her if she was still there. “No,” she said, “the old lady and her boyfriend were fighting all the time, so I left.” Knowing Carol, I imagine it is more likely that she lost control of herself and was told to leave. In any case, she was back on the street. Somehow, though, whatever happens, and in spite of the ignorance of government officials who have told her she is not ill and should just get a job, she manages to surface, buoyant, rocking and bobbing by the grace of God.

And in our own more privileged lives, we too move ahead – not smoothly, but by fits and starts, and not on a surface that is entirely smooth and flat. We dip and go under and then come up for air; we rock and bob along in the company of others who share the uneven path we are given to follow. And through it all, we are sustained by God’s grace, held up so that in spite of everything, we may take in life and be transformed in the breath of God’s Spirit.

The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want;
he makes me lie down in green pastures.

He leads me beside still waters; he restores my soul.

He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil;
for you are with me; your rod and your staff — they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil, my cup overflows.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

- Psalm 23