Jesus and a Bottle of Hennessy

Someone left their empty bottle of Hennessy near the bus stop. 

Discarded where children play. Where they wait on the yellow bus and explore the field. 

I saw it, that bottle, and I wished it away. 

Trash. 

Another week and the bottle was still there. Only now, someone took it upon themselves to smash it, leaving in its wake a million smaller pieces. 

Children still wait here for the bus, only now with parents constantly reminding them to "stay away from the glass". 

Now the glass is broken and I realize, I could have prevented this. I should have prevented this. 

***

Easter morning, 2021. 

The Easter after the YEAR OF QUARENTINE. Still a little funny. Everyone still wearing masks. 

But HE IS RISEN is echoed back and forth in excitement and children with their colorful plastic eggs eat chocolate and blow bubbles. 

GOD IS THE GOD OF SECOND CHANCES. I hear. 

And He is. 

GOD'S LIGHT SHINES BRIGHT THROUGH BROKEN THINGS. 
Imagery of a vase, once whole, then broken. Glued together, with artistic lines of glue and occasional gaps where a piece was unfound. 

The light shines through these cracks and gaps. 

The light shines bright, when we allow it to. 

***

We wanted to do an Easter Egg Hunt for our kiddos, the neighbor and I. As the day got closer I considered setting boundaries "stay away from the broken glass", but I knew -I KNEW- that in order to do the hunt well, to best protect our children, I needed to do the hard work. I needed to go out there and clean the mess. 

*****

A speaker was at an event and needed to use the restroom. 

Once inside she found herself complaining, "God, someone needs to clean these bathrooms".

Instantly God reminder her, "You are someone".

 DROP. THE. FRICKIN. MIC. 

 *****

And then it was time. I put on my dish gloves, double-bagged a Walmart bag, and went to the field. As I bent, picking up the broken pieces of the Hennessy bottle, I did so knowing that this was important work. Also, that it would have been easier to pick up the whole bottle than it was to look for little pieces in the now overgrown grass. 

Some pieces were larger, which both terrified me as I knew our children played nearby, and others smaller, which caused me reason for reflection. 

Wasn't this so much like the sin in our lives? 
It is an ugly sight at first. We see it, over there, and do our best to ignore it. 

As often happens, however, the piece gets broken and finding the smaller pieces, now with ragged edges and hiding in plush grass, is so much trickier. 

I am learning that my life holds some bottles. 

Some are still whole and I can see them for what they are and do the work to remove them. 

Others are broken. Forgotten about, maybe, but there. With ragged edges. 

As time goes on, not dealing with them does not magically make them go away, it conceals them, with grass and it moves them to other places with wind and rain. The broken pieces now touch other parts of the pavement- other parts of me. 

So much is connected and doing the work of finding all the pieces is that much more demanding. 

Those large, pointed pieces? They are dangerous. Able to sever a finger, stab a foot. Able to elicit stitches and scars. 

And those tiny pieces, harder to find in the aftermath of the smashing, they can get in, undetected, and cause such pain, cause such wounding. 

*****

In our lives, we all have bottles. Some sit nicely on shelves where we have exalted them as pieces we are proud of. Sin we have no desire to dethrone. Others are placed lower, hidden, maybe. We know they are wrong and so we hide them from others- save ourselves and an all-knowing God. But we do the work of hiding so that we can continue. The third set of bottles are exposed. Sitting, discarded, in grassy lots where children play. Their appearance is offensive. They know they are unwanted. 

Doing the work of removing them is just that, work. 

I did not place that bottle in the grass and I did not want to touch it. 

Once it was shattered, I inwardly kicked myself, instantly aware that this was so much worse. 

If there is work to be done in your life -and friend, there is- choosing to do the work while the bottle is offensive but still whole is indefinitely easier than cleaning the mess the offensive and shattered bottle leaves behind. 

Picking up those pieces helped to prevent not only my children, but all the children at the bus stop. It was important work. And because it was done, it was no longer able to inflict pain. The power was gone. 

source

Working on ourselves is not only good for us, it is good for others. 

It is residual. 

It is the work of legacies. 

I desire for my sons to live without discarded bottles lying on the street. But when they are there, I know I have work to do.