The plan was always Love

Meet (if you haven't already) the lowly skunk cabbage. For some reason this plant has always delighted me, so when I found a huge patch of them yesterday outside of Monroe, I just laughed out loud -- they just make me smile.

Photographing skunk cabbage is every bit as counter-intuitive as photographing the sides of rusty metal buildings or (as I also photographed yesterday) weird patterns in the cement floor of outhouses: these do not appear to be God's favored creatures.  For one thing, they really do stink.

But something in me just delights in them.  Just as something in God delights in each of us -- no matter how much our actions stink sometimes.  I know; you were hoping I wouldn't go there; it seems so sort of obvious and tacky.  But both books I'm reading took a look at the Prodigal Son story today, so you know I just had to talk about it. 

Maybe that's why I like the skunk cabbage so much: doesn't that little green stalk inside the yellow remind you a bit of a jack-in-the-pulpit?  So if this cabbage is preaching to you today, well -- I suspect that's the message: God delights in us.  Even the lost and the lowly are precious. 

Which is a little odd, actually: usually I spend my Lenten periods feeling guilty and depressed.  But reading Desmond Tutu as a Lenten discipline doesn't really let you go there: it's just so uplifting!  I'm sure I've mentioned before that I once gave up worrying for Lent.  But this year, it looks like what I'm called to give up is a lifelong habit of guilt and self-recrimination  -- you know the deal: punishing myself so God doesn't have to?  That was really never the plan, you know: the plan was always Love. And doesn't that just flip this whole business of being a "good Christian" upside down?

Here's Richard Rohr's prayer for today; somehow it seems appropriate (his response to the Prodigal Son story):

"Well, good God, if this is true, I've had it all wrong up to now!  Who are you?  And who am I?"