Out of the Corner of My Eye

By Lisa B. LaLonde January 24, 1996

Life. I find myself struggling to define it, with its nemesis and arch enemy seemingly surrounding me on all sides. The breath of death makes you shudder to realize how close it always is to you. Why is it death doesn't bring life into closer focus? Maybe life is something you don't understand unless you're not looking at it directly, kind of like seeing something clearer out of the corner of your eye when you weren't really thinking about it at all.

There has been another death, another young death. A senseless and tragic death. Isn't all death tragic? I find myself saying no, but this one was. I have felt this year is a year of death. I can't explain why, I just felt it. I know both my grandmothers will finally cross that threshold, and theirs will each be a good death. It is what their souls long for. Why are two old women craving heaven's death and being denied it, while two young women were thrust through its door?

Life. I don't understand life. What is life for, about, because? What gives it value and joy? What brings growth and life out of even pain and sorrow and the tears of silent suffering?

I find the only possible path to understanding life in thinking about the life cycle. It is the only tangible I can grasp onto right now. A seed is sown and it dies. How early in the life cycle it must die! And out of its death-bed of dark damp soil, a miracle happens. A shoot feels its way in the dark. It is alive! But it is still buried, surrounded by its own death, not knowing what light and life is, not seeing its own potential. It only sees death. But something in it, the small alive something, causes it to turn its face up - how does it know "up"? Why does it not grow down by mistake? Because there is a Master Gardener in control, and he breathes his life down into the depths of death and darkness and the little shoot says to itself, "That is real. That is what my heart desires. I must feel that breath again. I must follow it." And so its climb and its growing spurt starts.

How if the shoot were to give up and inch from the surface, never having felt the sun's warmth, or known the joy of waving in the breeze? If it gives up not knowing how close to victory it is, the struggle has been in vain. The death was just another death.

But there is a Master Gardener, and he knows that the last inch is the hardest to cover for a tired and discouraged shoot. He breathes again on the dark and dead place where the shoot struggles upward from its tomb. "There it is again!" the shoot's heart cries. "That which my soul desires! I must continue on, even if it is a lie. Better that a touch like that is a lie than to stay here in true death." And by grace the shoot pushes upward again, renewed by the mystery of hope in a desperate situation.

Have you seen a shoot sitting silently in the cold spring air after its final push to find the surface? Doesn't your heart ring with its silent cry of joy? The miracle of life out of death has happened again. You walk timidly amongst the new babies - dots of bright green sprinkled among last Fall's dead leaves and splotches of dirty snow and cracked branches. The shoots are pleased - feel the sun! (They know not that it is still a cold sun). Feel the breeze! (We would call it a wintry chill and pull our coat collars up tighter). But the shoots of spring know them only as their reward, the mystery of victory. The triumph of life over death.

And still the Master Gardener is not done yet.

Gradually, he lets his sun-rays grow warmer, and like the touch of true love, his shoots respond. They must reach the sun! It is the visible sign of the touch of love they felt must be truth in their deathbed. To reach the sun would be to reach their soul's desire. The breeze that blows becomes warmer and gentler. They love to have it play with their grassy hair. They laugh when they feel it, often hear it, running through their ranks, breezes chasing breezes, and the adolescent shoots, now handsome and firm grassy spikes, chase with them.

Rain! The first rainfall, mysterious and harsh - they don't like it. It pelts them down, forcing their faces back into the dark and dead earth they struggled to be free of. Such reminders of where they came from make them cry out: "No! I will not go back to death!" They struggle with the pain of it as they see some of their fellow leaves lying broken, damaged, dead. To return to death mystifies them. Why were they given life in the first place if it was just to be taken from them? They curse the rain, harsh bullets of death, but in their hearts they know, they feel the truth of it. That water that hit them so hard was the same water they drank so thirstily in their tombs. The same water that gave them strength to climb. Even now, they feel it seeping into their roots, bringing refreshment and strength.

The post-storm sun seems somehow gentler as it coaxes them back into an upright position. They almost forget the pain of the rain as they feel strength returning to their willowy forms. The wise ones remember and never take life, or sun, or breeze, or rain for granted again. It is said that these are the ones who live life to its fullest - the blades of grass who can accept and enjoy what each day brings from the Master, and who never forget that they came from death and can easily go back to death. It is they who love the sun's warmth the best, who are most playful with the breezes, who bend submissively with the rain, and rise up joyfully when they realize it has not destroyed them but fed them, and they greet the new day cheerfully and thankfully. It is they who recognize the breath of the Master Gardener, and though they never see him, they see his works all around them and know that his garden is the most beautiful and well cared for. And they are content.

Someday they will feel a different breath, and recognizing it still as the Master Gardener's, they will lie down submissively in the dead and dark earth. Whether they die by rain, or cutting, or simple old age, they'll feel its approach and recognize their time of seeking the sun and chasing the breeze is over. They feel an ending but also a beginning. As they embrace their death, they recall others they've seen die, and how their forms disappeared back into the dark and death. And somehow life returned to that spot. A new shoot. Death fed life, it was not just another death.

As they lie submitted to the Master's new breath, they feel for the last time the sun's warmth, and drink it in like they've drank the rain over the years, letting its warmth clothe them for their passage. They feel themselves being pulled out of their now fragile form - what is this new life? They had it all wrong! Death is a doorway. They feel themselves carried through by unseen hands, and placed gently on the ground, not dark and dead soil, but soil that sings and cries out the glory of new life! The grasses feel themselves stir, and realize they too are singing! They plant their feet firmly in the joyful soil, so they can stand fully upright and join in the revelry. It is then they realize the sun's warmth they were clothed with on their deathbed was nothing compared to the new sun's warmth they bask in now. It is familiar, but so unlike the warmth they've known before that they realize they've been living in a shadow. This is the real thing. As one they turn towards this new sun - and realize it is Him! It is Him whom their souls have been desiring since they first felt his breath in their first death. Their second death has brought them face to face with the Master Gardener, and the joy of finding him, the warmth from his breath, causes them to fall flat on their faces in the joyful earth. Their hearts still singing, they realize it is a thankful song of adoration and love. He sits amongst them and they can hardly bear the sweetness of it. They feel his love and his power and are awed that they ever doubted him in the rains and the death-times. When he rises they spring back upright - they must keep him in sight! They realize what a big place this new garden of his is, bigger and more beautiful than they could ever have imagined. And people....people everywhere walking and singing, the same song as the earth and the grass. Each one follows the Master Gardener with their eyes, it seems none can move their gaze from his face. And by the wonder of the place, no matter how far away he moves off, all can still see him, and when he turns your way, though he is distant, you can feel his breath and see the light of his eyes and feel the warmth of his presence. And all feel his smile is just for them, and by the wonder of the place, it is.

Our grasses gradually take in their surroundings (when they can bear to take their eyes off the Master!) Trees ("Hey! There's the old oak that died last winter!"), flowers, birds and animals, streams and mountains, and even clouds in an ever blue sky that seem to dance a beautiful dance to the melody still ringing through the ground. Trees waving and birds swooping, people laughing and through it all the warmth of the sun, the man who is Master Gardener.

This is the thing my soul desires, and there are times I catch glimpses of it in this life, this life I find more and more that I don't understand. I find I see it best when I am not looking at it directly, like seeing something clearer out of the corner of your eye when you weren't really thinking about it at all. When I forget and try to stare it down, forcing a definition out of it, it runs away laughing. But when I least expect it, I'll turn and discover it has been sitting quietly with me, enjoying the sound of the breeze playing in the trees, or a friend's laugh, or the way the sun sits gently on a mountain before it disappears with a splash of color like it was diving into all their depths. I know it's there when maybe, just maybe, the clouds are dancing to that heavenly tune, and I feel a wordless song rising up in me in response. I know someday I'll hear the tune in all its full glory, but for now I'll rest content that in moments of grace there are sweet snippets of it running through my soul and into my heart, giving me the strength to push through that last inch of death and dark soil, or to endure the rain bullets, renewed by the mystery of hope in a desperate situation

© 1996 Lisa B. LaLonde