(At midnight) Today is the beginning of the rest of your life.

Each day is, actually. In this case, Mom’s death will bring a radically different schedule of my days –our life – but every day we all have the option to begin anew. Every day I always have the option to let Jesus grow ever more visible to the world through the way I think and what I do. Each of us is constantly being recreated if we permit it. Each day we are born – again. Maybe that’s what the phrase is all about. To be born again is to greet each day as if the others hadn’t happened – open to the transforming power of God who “makes all things new.” To be born again is to get up in the morning with open hands that have not held onto the memories of the troubles and hurts and hatreds of yesterday. To have hands that are ready to receive the gift of life and love that is in today. To be born again as innocent and beloved children of God who gives the kingdom to the childlike no matter what their age.

Consider the Lily of the Pot

When the Spring season was over in 2009, I tossed the potted Easter lily behind a hedge by the porch. In late April 2010, I noticed that it had started to grow again and I put it on the table on the deck. It grew, but there were no blooms. After about a month, four buds appeared but they didn't bloom. And they didn’t bloom. And…they…didn’t…bloom.

But I had hope. The stem was growing crooked, and the plant looked cockeyed, so I kept turning it so that it would grow straight. Finally, I realized at 3am one night that the plant and I had been fighting - it wanted to stretch out toward the sun and I had kept turning it to what I thought was the "proper" well balanced way. It was using all its energy trying to get back to where it wanted to be.

Out I went, in the dark, apologized and turned it back to the east. Four days later, it bloomed. I had spent a lot of energy doing what I thought was the right thing for something that was quite capable of figuring out what to do on its own. The message? Let it be. The lily bloomed when it was supposed to bloom once I got out of the way.

People let plants grow without ever thinking that they need to worry about them. Perhaps I should apply Let it be to more things in my life.

Meanwhile, isn't it pretty? And it did it all on its own.