Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

Boilerplate

I’m Harold Dykstra.  I’m retired, but I go to food bank distributions all over Tracy and talk to people that need someone who will listen to their story.  My time is well spent.  A police lieutenant suggested that I write down the conversations that I had with an angel.  I did not know she was an angel at the time.  The angel, for a little over a year, indwelled a life-sized posable action figure my children bought me, so that I would not be perceived as travelling alone.  And in a way, she was training me for what I do while talking to the needy.  She probed my heart to find out what I believed and how I express love for others.  She changed my life.

In her leaving, she said someone would come.  I had thought that was Jesus, in His second coming, but a new Babs, a little older, the model for the posable action figure arrived.  While I had no desire to start over with romance, Morrie helped her move in, thinking she was the other Babs who had returned.

This Week’s Question

Last week, I had a sinus infection, and Babs dressed up as a nurse.

This week I could not find Babs anywhere in the house.

I looked out the window in the backyard, and I saw her lying face down in the yard.  I ran to the deck and down the steps.  As I ran toward her, she rolled over on her side.

Babs smiled, “Harold, it surely took you a long time to get here.”

I said, “I did not hear you call.”

Babs said, “Harold, I didn’t call you.”

I sighed, “Then why mention that it took a long time for me to get here?”

Babs laughed.  “I faintly heard you calling me as you looked around inside the house.”

I sighed again, “Babs, don’t you think it would have been a good idea to answer that you were in the backyard, getting as close to nature as you possibly could?”

Babs said, “Harold, I did not wish to lose my spot.  There are these violets.  They might be violets or they might be Creeping Charlie.  But I was reading in Luke. ‘“Consider how the wild flowers grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these.’ (Luke 12:27).  Then when the wildflowers are gone, there is ‘But the rich should take pride in their humiliation—since they will pass away like a wild flower.’ (James 1:10).  We may not be rich.  We definitely aren’t neighbors of Pink Lady, but I don’t want to just wither away and die.  How long will these flowers last?”

I shrugged, “Babs, that is one of your easiest questions yet.  Tony is having a couple of guys mow the lawn tomorrow morning.  If you want to save those flowers, pick them now and we can press them.”

Babs groaned, “Harold, I don’t want a dressed and dried reminder of what I have awaiting me.  I will enjoy them today.  I have already taken pictures.”

I asked, “Babs, are the leave round and scalloped or are they heart shaped?”

Babs zoomed in on her phone photo.  “Heart!”

I smiled, “They are violets.  They will most likely be back next year.  But if you want, let’s go down to the greenhouse store and get some flowers.  We can get some planters and line the railing around the deck.”

Babs giggled, “I want some impatiens.”

I stared at the clouds overhead.  I think I saw a bunny. “Why impatiens, Babs?”

Babs groaned, “I want flowers that are like me.  Impatient.”

I snickered, “I love that idea.  Impatiens do not like a lot of sun.  We’ll get some rail planters.  We can hang them toward the deck side, so that the deck will give them partial shade in and only any sun in the afternoon.”

Babs said, “Harold, it sounds like you have experience.”

I shrugged, “I have experience planning a flower garden.  I was a travelling salesman.  I was not home long enough to cultivate a flower garden.  I could not tend a vegetable garden.  My wife was sick all those years, and she started riding with me before that.  So, all my plans were dashed upon the rocks.”

Babs groaned, “Is the reason for the dearth in cultivated flower gardens in the Bible due to people always being on the move?  But Isaiah says, ‘For as the soil makes the sprout come up and a garden causes seeds to grow, so the Sovereign Lord will make righteousness and praise spring up before all nations.’ (Isaiah 61:11).  There had to be some kind of gardening.”

I laughed, “We talked about that when you were designing your bridal bouquet.  Cultivating the flowers of today is recent.  But the Egyptians started cultivating the wildflowers of that time for medicinal, fragrant, and aromatic uses.  That was a couple hundred years before Jacob and all of Israel moved there.  But that was mostly finding a wild plant and getting the seed to plant in a garden.  ‘My beloved is to me a cluster of henna blossoms from the vineyards of En Gedi.’ (Song of Songs 1:14). Henna has a white flower that is fragrant and used in perfumes and dyes.  ‘Your plants are an orchard of pomegranates with choice fruits, with henna and nard, nard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon, with every kind of incense tree, with myrrh and aloes and all the finest spices.’ (Song of Songs 4:13-14).  That gives us a lot of things to talk about.  Again, it mentions henna, but there is nard, also known as spikenard, and you should remember that Mary anointed Jesus’ feet with nard, and Judas Iscariot was angry that she was wasting such an expensive perfume.  But Jesus told her she had done the right thing.  You know how expensive saffron is these days.”

Babs asked, “Calamus.  What is it?”

I said, “Modern calamus or muskrat root has been used in medicines and such, but it might be poisonous.  They do not use it for that in the USA anymore, but it was used in the holy anointing oil.  But some scholars insist that it was not available in the middle east at that time.  Either the scholars are wrong, which they have been in the past, or what is now called calamus is not what Moses used in the anointing oil.  No contradiction, just one plant dies off or another plant was called the same thing.”

Babs said, “You aren’t the only one with a phone.  You skipped part of Song of Songs 1. ‘While the king was at his table, my perfume spread its fragrance. My beloved is to me a sachet of myrrh resting between my breasts.’ (Song of Songs 1:12-13).  Verse twelve, if you look at all English translations, you find both spikenard and nard used instead of perfume.  Then it mentions myrrh.”

I said, “The part of myrrh that they extract is the sap from the tree.  I thought we were looking for flowers.”

Babs said, “Anything that smells good, Harold.  Let’s not limit ourselves to pretty blossoms.”  About that moment, Sugar came up and licked Babs’ face. “Aagh!  Sugar!  Stop that!”  But Babs was laughing too hard for Sugar to realize what the words meant.  But it did get Babs to get off the grass.

Sugar was now here own free spirit.  The invisible fence and the electrical and water for her dog run were installed as soon as the ground softened.  So, she can come and go as she pleases.

Babs said, “You have mentioned crocus before, but isn’t saffron made from the crocus?  ‘The desert and the parched land will be glad; the wilderness will rejoice and blossom. Like the crocus, it will burst into bloom; it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy. The glory of Lebanon will be given to it, the splendor of Carmel and Sharon; they will see the glory of the Lord, the splendor of our God.’ (Isaiah 35:1-2)  So what crocus is Isaiah talking about?”

I said, “Probably the saffron crocus.  They are in the same family, kissing cousins, but the flower crocus blooms in the spring, but the saffron crocus blooms in the autumn.  Like I said, we cannot draw a straight line from the plant names in the Bible and what are cultivated today.  We have modified so many of the plants to grow faster, or make more fruit.  With the bulb flowers, they have been cultivated to make showy flowers, besides all the color varieties.”

Babs said, “But still, the beloved bride compares herself to the most common of flowers.  ‘I am a rose of Sharon, a lily of the valleys.’ (Song of Songs 2:1).”

I smiled, “But Babs, when the king goes to the beds of spices…  In other words where they cultivated the herbs for the food.  He lingered among the lilies.  ‘My beloved has gone down to his garden, to the beds of spices, to browse in the gardens and to gather lilies. I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine; he browses among the lilies.’ (Song of Songs 6:2-3).”

Babs brushed off some dried grass clippings from her clothing.  “I was thinking about taking a shower before we went out, but we’re going to the greenhouse for some flowers.  I will look like I fit right in.”

I laughed, “You always look beautiful to me.  I have to guard you everywhere we go.  Everyone looks at you and then looks again.”

Babs groaned, “I hope they aren’t recognizing me for what I did before I met Jesus.”

I said, “No, Babs, they see someone with an old man, and they think you are my daughter.  You have admitted that you do not look your age.  But before we go to the greenhouse, let’s go to the gardening department at the department store.  They have a better price on the type of rail planters that I’m thinking of.”

Babs said, “Okay, and I will go get my shopping list.  I want a few groceries.  They’ll have what I want there.  We won’t have to make more than two stops.”

Credits

All these conversations remind me of my conversations with my wife.  We would talk about anything and everything.  And most of the time, it sounded like a discussion in a Sunday school class.

There is a flower shop of sorts near me where they sell some vegetables, but mostly flowers and other plants used in decorating.  They have an enormous operation with most of it grown in greenhouses.  The owners used to go to our church, and they are still close friends.  In thinking of getting flowers to plant, it had to be a greenhouse.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.