I can never get their name right, always trip over the double “s” or is it the singular soft “c,” one of those ridiculously embarrassing words I can haphazardly spell but not make the thick tongue work its way around the letters.
I’m at the sink filling up a medicine bottle from the barn now aptly repurposed into a vase (doesn’t beauty always heal?), when Hope-girl asks me again — what’s the name of the flower she’s found in the ditch?
I write it slow on the counter, spell it bodily with my finger, the finger training the tongue: N-a-r-c-i-s-s-u-s.
“Nars —?” She looks up from our counter slate, looks up at me and we meet hesitant. And try together, eyes watching the other’s lips slowly form the sounds.
“Narcissus.”
I remember the story.
I set the heads of crystalline white on the window sill. The sun shimmers on the petals. Sheen of light flecks glint. Narcissus, he’s the one who died of thirst while staring smitten at his own reflection in a pool of water. I turn the triplet of blooms on one stem to face the light. And this is the plant, so the myth goes, that broke through the soil, that emerged the following spring in the spot where the boy’s self-absorption killed him. Narcissus, of the family of daffodils — those Easter bells.
In the sun, I can see the layer of dust settled thick across the sill. I grab a cloth. Isn’t this now the sixth week of Easter? Nearing the marking of Ascension? Does anyone remember? With the scars stitching up his palms, he said we’d be the ones who’d be His witnesses. Who has seen Him? Who is seen in Him? Any witnesses in the house?
I move the Narcissus, swipe away the dust. Maybe we’re all too self-absorbed. Is that what kills the church in the world? A parched world desperate for a sighting, witnesses to the Living Water, and us all staring pretty at ourselves till the whole planet keels over with thirst. I don’t know.
I move my cloth into the stubborn corners, the seam between the pane and sill. I do know that story of the Zen master who once sat down across from a Christian monk.
“You know,” he said in his faltering English, “I like Christianity. But —“ he glanced down at his books in front of him, then looked up again. “I would not like it without the resurrection.”
Suddenly he leaned forward so that his face was only inches from the monk.
“Show me your resurrection,” he said. He paused then, and smiled. “Show me your resurrection.”
Is that what the world is asking the witnesses? Just show me your resurrection.
Show me the power of Christ that has raised you with Christ, show me the power of marriages that thrive and the wonder of mercy for the prodigal sons.
Show me your real sacrifice for the homeless , your radical love forsaking consumerism to free children oppressed by poverty.
Show me the Dads who tenderly serve and show me the Moms who speak only soul-strengthening words and show us how to breathe the non-toxic air of grace and please, show our community the resurrection of the dead and disdained and discarded. In this post-Easter world — show us your resurrection!
Because if the resurrection is real, shouldn’t it make a real difference?
Mid-morning I snap frustrated at a child whom I’ve asked and asked and asked and still the books are left out. And I stop short. Murmur the world’s words aloud to me the seeming Christian: “Show me your resurrection.” I kneel, help stack the books. I calm, feel His power course the veins. And it strikes me: showing our resurrection is a bodily work, as physical as Thomas asking to touch Christ’s side, as material as the risen Christ eating.
I help the child shelve the books, spine out, spine out. Showing our resurrection must mean more than Bible-speak and Gospel-talk – it means a doubting culture must see a physical resurrection, the hands and the feet and body manifesting the power of Easter in our bones. Spine out, spine out.
The sun sets. The way the light falls in the last hours, I can always see the dust across the bureau, along the book shelves. The petals of the narcissus glow, their inner trumpet gold, a heralding crown.
I try to whisper their name again… and my finger spontaneously begins to spell the letters, the body leading the tongue. The body — the body will have to speak before the tongue. The body will have to be His witnesses, the body will have to manifest His power, the body will have to show our resurrection. The body will have to raise before the tongues do.
In fading light, I watch the narcissus bow their heads.
A beauty speaking louder than words.
Related: The Easter Season Series
Has Anyone Seen Signs of the Easter People?
When it Comes Time to Really Die
When There’s a Search for Eyewitnesses
How the Kids and the Next-Door Neighbors Might Really Become Christians
Wounded Spirits: How to Stop the Bullying
Every Wednesday, we Walk with Him, posting a spiritual practice that draws us nearer to His heart.To read the entire series of spiritual practices
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