the messiness of magic

The beautiful snow is melting and I see the dirty plastic bags of old mulch piled in the corner of the kitchen garden. It's messy. And I'm looking at the messy, but my mind is also seeing it with the snow piled high and hiding all of the imperfections and dirt and cracks and I'm remembering how fairy tale and ethereal the sight has been the past couple of days. And I'm quite okay with the messy because that is really a small price to pay for the magic.

Then I wince and shudder as my mind hears the words that have zinged and darted and catapulted from the bow and arrow and replays the pictures of expressions and averted eyes and disdainful head tilts and for a minute I am hopeless because of the messy that will probably always leave a stain even after it has been cleaned and cleared away. But the view backward and the view forward have huge piles of redemption and mercy and heaven and Spirit Song and soft, white blankets of forgiveness and from somewhere deep inside I am reminded that the magic doesn't even exist without the messy.

And in that mysterious, Divine way the King James English described as "quickening," the red letters lift up and drift off the pages of Luke 6 and I can almost feel the grass between my fingers as my spirit sits down to listen to the relevant, 21st-century sermon on the side of the mountain and verses 27 - 36 begin to fall softly and cover the messiness of my humanity with the magic of the spiritual.

And my heart practically bursts from within as I realize that the beautiful covering of mercy and redemption have again completely covered the muddy glob of the ugliness of the sin nature wearing my clothes and walking in my shoes so I am free to rejoice and laugh and sing and love and celebrate my brothers and sisters in the body of Christ because it is covering their messiness, too.

Luke chapter 6 verse 31:

"And as ye would that men should do to you,

do ye also to them likewise"

© 2009-2014 by Melani Brady Shock