Revelation at JP's

Lutheran, The, Jul 2002 by Miller, David L

I live in a world where flower-shop clerks walk around shining like the sun

Once in a blessed while, you get so swept up in the flow of giving and receiving that you see the face of God. Sometimes, when you least expect it, without ever choosing it, you get caught up in the ceaseless generosity that flows from the Father to the Son to the Spirit-and from God through all creation.

It happened at JP's Flower Shop in Warren, Ill., my hometown, population 1,500. There I met Deb Eberle while ordering a Mother's Day bouquet. I soon discovered that this flower-shop clerk is also an emergency medical technician, one of several who recently took care of my father as the ambulance rushed him to the hospital with an apparent heart attack.

"I wanted to call and see how he was doing," Deb said as she filled my order. "You want to know if everything is OK, but you don't know if you should call."

She described in matter-of-fact fashion what happened in the wee hours of the morning when they picked up my dad. I watched her closely as she spoke30-something, dark hair pulled back, hands soiled and creased, a pleasant unassuming manner that didn't demand attention.

There was nothing remarkable in her words, her expression or the tone of her voice. But the tears stinging my eyes kept telling me that caring for my dad-and for the dozens of others she had helped-was far more important to her than she could ever say.

In my mind's eye, I saw her hand laid gently on my father's back, where all his pain had been. I saw the "care-fullness" of that hand, and in her even tone I heard the voice with which she had likely sought to reassure him.

An overwhelming desire to say, "Thank you" surged in me. But I didn't know if I could choke out the words.

Finishing my order, I started to leave. Then I turned back. She was looking right at me, and I couldn't meet her gaze. "Thanks for taking.care of my dad," I started to say, but I didn't make it. My voice cracked.

I heard her sigh. Then without a word or hesitation, she stepped around the counter, opened her arms and hugged me. And I hugged back, trying without success through my tears to say, "Thank you."

Even now I see her hand reaching out to touch my dad's back, and I see her stepping around the counter to hug me. Seeing this, I realize again that I live in a world of grace. Deep beneath life's surface, the currents of God's grace pull disparate and disconnected lives together so they might physically share and express the ceaseless generosity of God's own life.

The Lord's body that I receive with open hands and grateful heart at the altar greets me with open arms in the flower shop. In those arms, I tasted for a few blessed seconds the eternal love by which, and for which, I was made-the abundant riches for which all creation is destined. And, whether she can name it or not, so did Deb. Call it the sacrament of the flower shop.

This always happens amid paradox, of course. My father's illness (though far less serious than a heart attack), my fear and Deb's need to know if she made a difference remind us, as if we needed it, that the sublime experience of God's life comes laced with human sorrow, suffering and frailty that seem to contradict it.

But still, God's life appears, sometimes so clearly that not even I can miss it. And when it does, I know I have all that I need, all that I will ever need. For I am carried in the loving flow of a stream that will never run dry. I live in a world of grace where flower-shop clerks walk around shining like the sun, aglow with God's glory. I wonder if Deb knows.

Amid all earth's sin, cruelty and cynicism, God's life and purpose draw us in. I wish I could always see it so clearly. But in moments when life hides it from view, I'll remember the sacrament of the flower shop-and keep looking.