The Smell of Lemons

Sometimes life is less than life. Most of the time life is less than living. We all know, life can get the best of us with its semi-transparent joys and resonating pain. The little dayly tragedies chip away at our resolution till we slowly bow to them and live beneath who we could be. Further, In the mix of a day full of simple joys and dizzying busyness, what triumphs we find can be fleeting clouds blown away by the necessities of the day. Things can get gray. Life becomes remiss of beauty. Living becomes a discipline of distraction. Each day can become a half life of dreams unrealized. Under such oppression, existing is the best many can do when darkness punches you in the face and dares you to get up! In those moments, less feeling souls may say, "When life gives you lemons go make lemonade." Such clichés are both trite and uncaring, yet I can’t help but smell the fain odor of reality.

Sometimes a song is more than a song. It can be an analogy of life itself. A song like human moments are measured out and ordered to reveal a purposeful harmony that was there all along, Hidden between the moments, in the breathless spaces between words. And in our hearing like in our living, a poetic 'Good' is uncovered; in lyric and harmony this 'good' that we feel in our bones is disclosed. A good that is felt by human hearts and marked by divine work. A good that is woven through pain and redeemed in joy by divine hands. Hands that still show the scars and splinters of pain personally realized. Jesus Hands that stream healing and open to reveal a good that withholds more pain than we know. Hands that sovereignly hold back a flood of suffering that could drown us if not for His power. Yet in our pain this secret escape, this "it could be worse if not for the grace of God" is often forgotten. And even in our forgetfulness the hands still heal, the hands still hold, the hands still write the music life itself sets its rhythms too. And in little ways, a Song can show this 'Good' even, in our pain, even if it hurts.

Sometimes a song is more than a song. It is a string on your finger, a reminder of some person. You smile with mixed glee at the fleeting memory of who they are to you. What often goes “unknotted” is how they in little ways, made you. How events may have impacted you but they changed you. When I here the song below my sister, Jill comes to mind. Jill was a victim of domestic violence. Hurt by one that clammed to love, she rose from the ash, healed from the bruises, and walked away; retaining her dignity and protecting the life of her baby girl. Jill didn’t just make lemonade. She bought stock in Kool Ade. Today she is on the offensive as a legal advocate for battered women; fighting relentlessly to insure women receive the dignity afforded them as the crowning art of God's creative act. She stands up for those whom Jesus called the 'least of these', resisting drunken rednecks, death threats, and shotguns in her face, even governmental lobbyist. Vowing to protect and pull women and children from abusive life threatening situations. She taught me how a cliché could resonate with relentless truth when God is your backbone and justice your shield. I love my sisters, I love Jill and every time I hug her I smell lemons.

Sometimes life is less than life.

Sometimes a song is more than a song.

Sometimes you smell lemons.