I admit it.
I’m one of those people.
I own an Apple iPad.
I help make Steve Jobs one of the richest men in the world and he didn’t even have to sell me on the iPad. He held it up. I saw it. I wanted it. I bought it.
Apparently, some people need to be sold on it, hence all the iPad commercials. To me the most brilliant line from those commercials is this:
“You already know how to use it.”
I love this idea that there are parts of us that are hidden from even ourselves, that there are things we know how to do, people we know how to be if we just give ourselves the chance.
When I first saw the memorial garden at Hope Episcopal, I was taken aback by its quiet splendor. As beautiful a landscape as it was, though, it was also a little bit lonely, tucked away behind the trees. The white picket fence had collected dirt and moss and other things … things that grow, pop up overnight when no one is looking.
So I asked if I could clean the fence.
To know what it took for me to offer to do that, to know how God truly works from within when you are willing, you have to know a few things about me.
I hate cleaning.
I buy paper plates and plastic forks because I’m too lazy to load the dishwasher. I am an environmentalist’s nightmare.
Also, as I have mentioned before, I am not an outdoors person. In fact, my skin sees so little of the sun, that even when I’m outside for hours I don’t tan or burn because seemingly my skin’s forgotten how to. I’m so pale my friend Beth calls me Twilight because I could easily get a part as an extra in the next vampire movie.
And yet I found myself, one Saturday morning, crouched down by that white picket fence with the sun beating down and the bees and bugs buzzing about … cleaning fence post after fence post until the water and sponge became so dirty I started making a mess instead of cleaning one.
Somehow I enjoyed every minute of it. I wasn’t enjoying the bugs, or getting dirty or having my knees remind me every time I stood up that I wasn’t in the shape I should be.
I enjoyed accomplishing something, doing something, appreciating the moment when dirt and grime disappear and reveal the beauty underneath.
Sure, it’s just a white picket fence, but now it’s a white picket fence with a caretaker and who would have thought I’d be that person?
I kind of like that person.
