The Wind-Blown Hydrangea

I was entranced as I watched a dried hydrangea blow along the church pathway this blustery, winter morning. Light and billowy, it flitted down the path like a promise of spring, waiting impatiently to come. It bounced along, skidded on top of ice and frozen ground. It was like a cataclysmic clashing: of winter and spring, of hard and soft, of frozen ground and budding earth.

The wind-blown hydrangea hit the heavy, dark, church door, and bounced off; the wind whisking it off in another direction. I was sad for a moment as I thought of that hydrangea as God's Spirit that blows among us. Does it find our church doors shut, our teachings vacuous, our services unwelcoming? The church that morning was stark, and cold.

My mind's eye returned to the image of the hydrangea hitting the church door and blowing away. It is an accurate picture. We have shut the door on God in this state, and not politely either. Not like the old lady who declines the salesman at her door, bidding him another time perhaps. No, we have slammed the door, with clinched fists raised toward heaven. We've told God to go away and not to call.

I ponder this when a peace descends on me, reminding me that the Spirit does not need buildings of mortar and stone to call home; it needs the heart's soft flesh. We cannot stop the blowing of His Spirit, for when our churches close their doors; the birds will sing its liturgy. The novelist will write of redemption. The songwriter will fill a smoke-filled room with truth, and the Spirit, like a wind blown hydrangea, will still blow in and among all of them, bouncing off mortar yet piercing through flesh.