Goodbye, Hello

If I stand in my sun room just after 6am and open the shades, I am treated to an amazing gift when the weather and the cycles of the earth and moon are just right.  With windows on three sides facing West, North and East, this spot gives a panoramic view as the sky lightens over the Bosque River valley. One morning a couple weeks ago as I looked out to the west, the huge, orange-tinged full moon was hanging just above the turquoise horizon lined with the lovely Texas hills in purple silhouette.  As I turned towards the east, the sky repeated those orange turquoise and purple shades as it brightened with the breaking dawn.  As the moon set, the sun rose and for a very few minutes, I could see both at once.   I imagined the moon saying goodbye, ceding its subtle glowing place in the starry realm for a while. The sun was saying hello, taking over the sky with its strong light, heat and power. 
Goodbyes and hellos—there have been many of these in the past weeks for me, for all of us. This past month of June was a particularly poignant time of goodbyes and hellos.  I, along with many others in our small community, said goodbye to a special friend, goodbye to an amazing talent and spirit, goodbye to the music that flowed from his fingers and voice.  Goodbye to the gifted one who walked with us for too short a time.  Hello to the legacy of faith, song and friendships that will sustain and comfort.  Hello to memory and reminiscence and shared laughter and tears. Goodbyes and hellos these days rise and fall as dependably as the moon and sun: goodbye to casual, carefree parties and shared ceremonies and rituals; goodbye to meetings or jobs; hello to face masks and shortages; hello to unrushed family meals and virtual connections. Goodbye to dreams of a short-lived quarantine and hello to the long-haul.

I am thankful all goodbyes are not so serious or emotional. I’m glad that the hellos of life can still delight and surprise. As May turned to June and June to July, I said a happy goodbye to an arid concrete slab of a patio, a cheerless, dry space that even I, the heat-loving being that I am, avoid in the summer months.  The increased time at home has given me plenty of opportunities to stare at this west-facing wasteland. With the prospect of another hot summer looming and with no funds for a patio cover, even the do-it-yourself kind, I was stuck with the status quo. It is tempting right now to focus on what I don’t have instead of what I do have.  I was easy to let the things I couldn’t control- the hot sun, the limited resources, the hard block of concrete, push me into scarcity thinking.  What, I wondered, was possible?  What was within my own control to change and add, to modify or replace?  A friend came for one of those social-distance visits and serendipitously brought an entire box of discarded gardening and landscape books. I pored through the colorful photographs- cottage gardens, moon gardens, rock gardens, annual and perennial borders- all were teeming with color, life and texture.  My mind began to whir with ideas and possibilities. Rough sketches and lists emerged. Internet and careful in-person searches began.  I haunted garden centers and feed stores for the bargain tables and, I confess, splurged on some new planters and pots. Hours of hard work filled the long shelter-in-place days and satisfaction gradually replaced frustration. It is a work in progress, but already the barren slab is transforming into an oasis of beauty. As the weeks of summer blur one into the other, an eyesore is now a haven.  I dig and plant and say hello to nature and let it work its magic. Peace hides among the begonias, the daisies, the green peppers and the lantana.  And faith, too of course. I find faith there as I say farewell to an image of negativity and aridity and embrace another image, one of a green and growing place. Faith thrives in the Divine cycle of growth and in the Creative urge to renew. Our world is still replete with vitality and growth even during the present harsh reality. Goodbye to the limits of tunnel-vision and the stymying effects of scarcity-based thinking.  Hello to a more generous mindset and the gift of time and sun and season. 
In the summer of 2020 and on into the fall there may be many more goodbyes than hellos.  Yet my lush, green and shady patio mentors me in optimism.  What, I wonder, is possible in this time and in this place? Despite restrictions, upheavals and health threats, what is within my own control to change and add, to modify or replace?    In order to say a spirit-filled, honest hello, I must say goodbye to things unfolding in a specific prescribed way and hello to new ways of living and being that I cannot predict or anticipate.  Everything need not change… but some things should. I can’t fully embrace the invitations of hellos until I view my goodbyes as messengers of wisdom rather than pits of sorrow. Sometimes, like my morning view of the sun and the moon, I get the chance to see this cycle at the same time, the endings and the beginnings held in suspension for just a few precious moments. In the emotional and the ordinary goodbyes and hellos of this past month, I find instruction.  When dreams change or worlds shrink… or people die, there is always a hello somewhere, to ease the way or to spark hope even while we mourn, even while we change and adapt.  Even while we dig and plant and wait for flowers to flourish and leaves to unfurl. Today I’m grateful for the hellos embedded in the goodbyes, and for the goodbyes that are inevitable in the gardens of our lives.

Most days now, I perch outside on my ratty old chair just so, in a spot where I can turn and look west at the blooming (and still hot) patio, and then turn and look east at the wild and shady woods.  Goodbye, I say to the night; Hello, I say to the day. Whether here on my patio or there in my sun/moon room, I see the world stretching out beyond this hillside into the eternal reaches of time and space.  The many goodbyes and hellos of life cycle on and on as they must, swirling and touching all of us as we grieve and hope, as we end and begin anew, and as we trust the cycle of time and the constancy of our Creator. I look west. I look east. The world turns.  

God spoke: “Lights! Come Out! Shine in Heaven’s sky!

Separate Day from Night.

Mark seasons and days and years,

Lights in Heaven’s sky to give light to Earth.”

And there it was.  Genesis 1 14-18 The Message

Question for Reflection:

Take a moment and think of one thing in your present circumstance that is within your power to control, change, or impact.  To what do you need to say goodbye so that change can happen? Where and how will a hello emerge? 

Free title photo by NeONBRAND downloaded from Unsplash.com