May memory restore again and again the smallest color of the smallest day.~Delmore Schwartz

Earlier this week I glanced up while driving.  I spotted tissue-thin pink blooms curling up dark tree limbs.  I hadn't realized my tightened chest.  Yet when the image of that tree entered my mind, I felt the knot loosen, felt my body relax.  I wanted my life to be encapsulated in that robust pinkness.  I didn't want the memory to evaporate.  I didn't want that emotional stillness to end.  Let me stay here.  Let me string this moment into a chain of days.  I wanted that calm to decimate chaos, comparison, competition, climate change and the tyranny of the urgent.  Just let me off for a time.  Let me off this spinning wheel. 

Was this a prayer of supplication?  Was this lament?  

What am I to learn when I feel this way?  How do I see things?  How does God see things?

I often hold on to doubt.  I create walls.  I get stuck.  I dwell on circumstances.  I live in fear.  I expect the worst. 

And God?  I think He would say, "I am for you.  I easily create pathways through the issues and concerns that scare you and bring you anxiety.  You can relax and lean on me. I provide wisdom and rest.  Circumstances are not your primary focus, but rather my extravagant grace.  My cathedral of peace inhabits your heart.  I have moments for you each day, moments like seeing the spring pink on the tree.  You don't have to hoard those events and observations.  They are there each day, and when you are at rest, you'll see more and more of them.  Do not panic.  Do not worry.  Enjoy each day."

"Yes, God," I say, "Yes.  I need so much review of your truth."

I sit in the sun on my back porch, drinking a fresh cup of triple chocolate-flavored coffee.  I look up and see trees swaying in the breeze.  "God, let me be like the river birches who lithely bend and breathe and stretch.  Rejoicing.  Singing."  Something drifts from the sky and lands on my open book.  It is a single pink petal, the smallest color sent to restore my memory.