Plop

On remembering others are not extras in our movie.

If you prefer to listen, an audio version is available here:

I was minding my own business, sitting in my collapsable camp chair just outside of Sante Fe last week, when about ten feet in front of me…plop.  A pinecone fell from a tree above.   I looked up from the book I was reading just in time to see it nestle into the pine straw, joining about fifty others of similar size and temperament, in the little grove where I was camping.  (That’s ‘my’ pinecone there in the picture.) 

That’s when I had a stroke of obvious (I get those a lot).  It occurred to me that every one of those fifty pinecones had once done the same thing.  Plop…plop…plop…plop.  In their own time, each had fallen from above and settled in, now looking as if they had always been there.

And I realized how often I do that; look at things as if the way I found them is the way they’ve always been.  As if some cosmic exterior decorator had arranged all those pinecones (and everything else), for my camping pleasure.

So, I decided to play a little game.  Starting with ‘my’ pinecone, I imagined all those pinecones going back up to the trees that birthed them in reverse order.  Up, up, up they went, one at a time.  Can you picture it?  And then I imagined them ‘growing’ - still in reverse.  Getting smaller, tighter, and greener until they were just little buds on the tree.  And then…poof.  Gone completely.  Now just a twinkle in a pine tree’s eye. 

And being easily entertained, I kept going, imagining now the trees themselves growing - still in reverse.  Going back in time, they became shorter and thinner, until the twenty or so trees in front of me were just spindly little saplings, maybe a foot tall.  Can you see them?  And then, going back just a little more, they were gone too.  Just seeds buried in the ground, waiting for their moment. 

Seeds that, of course, didn’t start out buried in the ground.  They were once on the ground, as…pinecones.  There would have been a pinecone everywhere a tree is now (how had I never thought of that?).  Dropped by some other tree, that probably isn’t even here anymore, maybe while some other camper was minding their own business years ago when they heard something go…plop.

I’m tempted to stop there, because it’s just such a cool idea how pine trees beget pinecones…who beget pine trees…who beget pinecones.  (How awesome is the word ‘beget,’ by the way?)  But this is a “spiritual” newsletter, and I actually do have something spiritual-ish to say about it.

I’ve led a lot of memorial services in my life.  And one of the things I always look forward to, especially if the person we are celebrating lived a long life…are pictures the family puts on display from when they were younger.  Often as a pastor, I might only get to know someone when they are, well, old.  (I’ll let you define what ‘old’ means, since, the older I get, the further away it gets.) 

And when I see these photos, I realize I do the same thing with people that I do with pinecones – I make the mistake of thinking the way I found them is the way they’ve always been. 

But when you see someone you’ve only known in, say, their 90’s (90 is still old, right?) and then you see photos of them in their 20’s!  All smooth and sexy and strong-bodied.  (Yes, I said sexy…deal with it).  It will take your breath away. 

And I don’t mean to sound agist.  On the contrary, my experience so far is that life gets better with age.  And some of the most beautiful faces I have ever seen were in their 90’s.

I’m just saying that when you see someone you’ve only known as a grandmother or grandfather, lounging on a boat in the 1940’s, hair flowing in the breeze like they’re on the cover of a magazine, it is the best!  And a little jarring. 

Because we have the hardest time keeping in mind that the people around us have not always been the way we found them.  They were not just placed here as extras in our movie.  They have had unimaginably rich lives.  Every one of them.  Even your Aunt Jean, the most boring woman In-The-World.  Everyone’s life is incomprehensibly beautiful and sad and complicated and holy. 

So, as you go about your day, try to remember the people around you were not placed here by some cosmic decorator.  They went through a lot to get here.  And now, by chance or by grace, their path has crossed your path…plop. 

And even if you don’t know their life story, it’s a gift to them, and to yourself, to remember that they have one. 

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