The old cliché, “Stop and Smell the Roses” is a welcome antidote for our hurried, driven, and instrumentalized lives. But who really has time for that?
Ok, fair enough, but what if we put it another way, “Consider the lilies of the field . . . ”
In this installment of our “Spiritual Formation in Context” series, “Consider the Lilies,” Dr. Joseph Clair, Martin Institute Cultura Fellow and Associate Provost and Professor of Theology at George Fox, takes Jesus’ advice quite literally. In his contemplative reflection Joseph shows how the practice of paying attention to something as ordinary as the beauty of flowers resists striving and reorients our lives to the Kingdom of God. Noting the connection between beauty and grace, he writes, “In the beauty of flowers, Jesus says, we are invited to see that the providential hand orchestrating all of that gratuitous beauty is actively caring for us – weaving the fabric of our life, tending to our needs in ways that we cannot comprehend.” In this season of Eastertide, we hope you are encouraged to consider the lilies of your life anew.