Lilac Days

The pungent aroma of blooming lilacs is highly irresistible to me, especially as I walk by them. I can't help but stop and breathe in the sweetness of their fragrance, so profound is their effect. Captivating, scintillating and mesmerizing are the lilac's pink and blue flowers, hearkening me back to a more innocent day . . .

Just outside the kitchen door of my boyhood home once stood a giant lilac bush which towered eight feet tall and had a base somewhere around four feet in diameter. Carved into the base of the lilac bush was a crescent moon shape, carefully dug and maintained there by generations of farm dogs who found that spot the coolest place to lay on a hot Summer day. Just as carefully formed around the outside of the lilac bush were the nesting spots of many of our farm cats who found the shade of the lilac too tempting to pass, even though the dogs were resting inside the bush. That bush may have been the one place on the farm all the animals understood to be a demilitarized zone, so sacred was the comfort found there.

Bursting out the door after breakfast, dinner or supper in the Springtime as a young boy, I was guaranteed the headiness of entering into a bouquet of God's creative abilities, the likes of which words are inadequate to describe. The aroma of the blooming lilac drifted over and through all the other smells an active dairy farm had to offer, demanding one's attention and appreciation at every turn. So powerful the smell, so deep the response even then, I am lifted on the wings of memory to those moments and the joy the blooming lilac evoked in me, still.

We have two Korean miniature lilacs blooming in our yard this Spring and I am ever so grateful to have them there, though our passing neighbors must think me an eccentric because of them: I cannot pass by them without stopping to lift their gentle blooms to breathe in the undiluted majesty of their gift to me, as though God created them just for me. They take me home to Mom and Dad. They take me back to a more uncomplicated time in my life. They take me back to simpler days with my brothers. They convey me to a time when my grandfather's both lived with us and loved the lilac, too. They transport me to a time when dogs and cats waited in the shade of the lilac just outside that kitchen door for the scraps which came from our table. They move my spirit to a gentle remembering . . . and I am ever so grateful.

I do not want to go back to those days, yet am intensely appreciative of the meaning they still carry for me in my life today - and the lilac is sign and symbol of that fluid journey ongoing in my senses. I am amazed, still, in the capacity of the blooming lilac to do such wonders, to induce such reactions, to demand such devotion in me. But, is that not the gift of our senses? To remember that which pleases? To ponder that which blesses? And, to stay away from that which does neither?

Holy Week is God's lilac to us all. Find your comfort in both its' presence and memory, living not to go back to those days but, in remembering, being ready to live into the profound awe God has in store for you. Stop, and breathe in God's lilac love, a healing gift through Christ for us all.