Wabi Sabi & Fake Rocks in the Garden

Last week, I posted a few shots from my daily
commute.  Pictures of trees, old wooden
fences, canopied hilly roads, lakes, and the sloping fields of my half-hour-ish
drive into Adventures.  The original plan
was to also photograph one of the many plastic landscaping rocks along the route which hide
whatever unsightly mess the owners aren’t too crazy about.  But my driving + the terrain + my driving =
no bueno.

Plastic rocks you may ask?  It may be a north
Georgia phenomenon, but I doubt it. 
These rocks are big, OBVIOUS, visual shields which cover up the gas
meter, septic clean outs, stumps, and other stuff of life.  The problem is…ALL I can see are these plastic shells plunked
down along the landscape. Instead of color-rich
crepe myrtle trees or brilliant landscapes, all I can see is the plastic rocks.  As for camouflaging….it’s a FAIL.

So one day as I was barreling down these
country roads, I caught myself getting a little cheeky about how ridiculous is
this attempt at camouflage.  Snarky.  Superior. 
Asinine.  (My M.O.)

That was until that little voice in my heart
asked, “so
what sort of life funk are you trying to camouflage, Allie, and is it working
any better?”  Ewwww.  Nope. 
Not at all.

You see, I work hard to camouflage my
insecurities with diligent sanctimonious work and people-pleasing. 

Got a funky attitude about another Christian or
life viewpoint?  How about draping a
little Jesus-speak and false humility over it and hope nobody notices. 

Potty mouth and a keen awareness that out of
the overflow of my mouth my heart speaks? 
Foster a rebel-Jesus freak image…or try to at this age.  Yep. 
Looks just as convincing as trying to cover up gravity’s work with a
pile of make-up and tween fashions.  Ain’t happening. 
Another camouflaging fail. 

All this effort to hide the craptacular rubbish of my life is
wasting energy and time and relationships when I could just yield to dealing
with it.  Crazy thought, I know.

You see, when I get real about feeling like a
blind one-eyed limping mangy squirrel in a room full of Harvard-trained
super-geniuses, I discover other people feel similar.  If I can fess up that I’m really wrestling
with a dream for my life or how wouldn’t it be really great to meet a fella who
had a heart for doing life similarly with people-my broken places become an invitation to
others.  It’s
like offering up a bench in the park, Forrest Gump-style, to welcome people and
love them and listen to their stories. People come by, sense the safety of the
real life offered, and they sit down for a chat.   And that is so cool; it gets me excited!

And this is where “WABI SABI” comes in (and it’s fun to say so why not?)  Wabi
sabi is the Japanese art of finding beauty in an imperfect world.  I think God has the market share on this-if
we’ll just get out of his way.  He looks
at his kids-the “lost” and the “found”-and loves us.  He doesn’t ask us to pretty up before we come
to him.  Nor does he ask us to pretty up
the funk that we are living in.  He
invites us to his table, to his family, to his heartbeat just as we are-lumpy,
bumpy, sleepy, sneezy, snarky, and bathed in FAIL.  Despite our outward appearances, he loves our
inward stuff of life-septic tanks that need cleaning out.  Our camouflaging just gets in the way of
being bathed in his full-on love for us. 
It makes it harder for him to reveal the beauty in the imperfect which
is us.

So here’s to the plastic rocks, the broken
road, and WABI SABI.  And to a God who
loves us just where we are-and loves us enough not to leave us there.  Phew. 
Pressure is off to appear perfect. 
Finally.

Today’s Wabi Sabi
challenge: Romans 12:1 from The Message: 
“So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday,
ordinary life – your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around
life-and place it before God as an offering. 
Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him.”