On Tulips and Waiting

I’ll be the first to admit…I don’t hold an overly favorable opinion of Valentine’s Day.  A day so completely divorced from its roots the irony of the day is almost laughable.  That being said, however, over the years I’ve tried to create quiet traditions of doing something special for myself; using Valentines Day as an excuse.  Typically, this involves a bottle of slightly-better-than-average wine and a planted tulip.  I always choose small planted tulip arrangements. They tend to last longer and when the blossoms inevitably die, I carefully harvest and dry the bulbs, storing them to plant in the fall.

This year, with the sum total of the rest of my plants in foster care at my parents’ house as my own home is covered in paint and drywall dust, I didn’t pick up any tulips.  But then I did.  They were 50% off and I justified that I could always bring them to the office to enjoy.

It was quick to see these tulips were woefully neglected and 50% off because they were likely also about 50% dead.  The dirt was far too dry.  The stalks stilted.  My love for tulips drove me.  I convinced myself they just needed a little TLC.  I watered the thirsty bulbs and made sure they had access to adequate sun.  And watched as my tulips not only refused to bloom, but the top of the leaves began to wilt and crumble, despite my fervent care.

It didn’t matter how I watered.  It didn’t matter whether it was sunny or the perfect ambient temperature. My tulip came too close to death and now it won’t bloom.  In fact, if anything, the nourishing water and sun is hastening the inevitable end…

A sad look at my dying tulips and I found myself thinking about, well, me. About my soul. I thought about how fervent my spiritual life once was. How desperately I surrendered my heart and life to the Jesus I love and who I know loves me and how far I feel away from that love.  I thought of the roads I’ve walked and of the lives I’ve lived. I considered how many times I’ve felt abandoned by people who claimed to care, or worse – the ones I thought actually did.  I thought of how utterly bruised and beaten I’ve been by the Church and by churches over the past decade or more. The big “C” Church with its endless fighting and bickering and outright hatred and the way it looks so little like Jesus that, for the first time in my life, I find myself embarrassed to admit I’m a Christian – not because of who I am and know myself and my Jesus to be, but because “guilty by association” is real and I’m embarrassed by who YOU think I must be.  The little “c” churches with the muchness of investment and pouring of myself into places that couldn’t or wouldn’t reciprocate. Churches I attended for years and the many churches I served for months upon months, without ever being “one of them”; how many lives I truly tried to invest in during my time…though few if any knew anything about me, including how to spell my name – though printed in the bulletin week after week. I wondered if that was what Jesus meant when he said “foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”  That the cost of following Jesus often means you won’t belong in the places others find so natural, so much like home.

I thought of how, if I were a tulip, I would be embarrassed about the honesty of my 50% off tag. The one that says no one has wanted me to point and that maybe what I have left to give – no matter how much it feels of who I am – is less than 50% worthwhile.  But how maybe now the pressure is off to constantly succeed, to constantly strive, let alone thrive. I thought about how dried out, worn out, and absolutely exhausted I am.  By what life is and what life has been. 

I thought about how church hasn’t been a healthy place for me lately. How even my favorite faith-based music is often annoying and my heady theological books, the prize of this nerd – books I finally have time to read – have left me feeling cynical. This attempt at watering is too much, too late. Instead of healing me, strengthening me, empowering me…I too feel like I’ve come too close to death and won’t bloom.  Not in this season anyway.

But maybe not for always.

That’s the beauty of tulips.  Maybe the beauty of me.

You see, after tulips bloom, if you let the foliage die rather than trying to resurrect them or force another bloom…then everything that looks like and is death nourishes the bulbs in the dirt below. Those same bulbs which seem to have nothing left to offer simply need a place away from everything it would otherwise need…no sun, no heat, no water.  And then, and only then, you plant them again. And you wait. Because tulips need to almost die and struggle through frozen ground to bloom again.

Maybe I do too.