Before food, before drink,
before clothes, before shelter,
before happiness, before comfort,
seek first the kingdom,
seek first the righteousness,
seek first the kingdom,
seek first the righteousness,
and all these other, lesser things
will be added. You are
the treasure; seek and you
will find; seek and you
will be found.
Photograph by Noah Windler via Unsplash. Used with permission.
Consider the lily, perhaps the rose.
Nothing made by human hand
is so beautiful, so intricately
designed and wrought as a lily
or a rose. Nothing. Flowers
serve as dinner tables, and yet
no dinner table was as elaborately
designed as a flower. They sway
in the breeze, their beauty
shimmering and often startling,
unmatched by anything we
humans put our hands to.
And you are loved
more than flowers.
You are cared for
more than flowers.
Let tomorrow worry
about tomorrow;
consider the flower.
Photograph by Mikael Garcia via Unsplash, Used with permission.
They fly and flutter, chirp
and squawk, soar and sing,
land to find the wayward,
unsuspecting worm or mouse
or chipmunk or other, edible
delights. They build their nests
with grass and twigs and
whatever’s at hand, even mud
(where do they get mud from?).
They don’t have, or need,
therapists. They ignore Facebook
and Twitter, their own tweets
more to their liking. They go
about their work and day,
knowing what they’re
supposed to do, what they’re
called to do. They’re always
provided for.
And if we’re loved
more than the birds,
won’t we also be cared for?
Doesn’t he care for what
he loves even more?
Photograph by Jeremy Hynes via Unsplash. Used with permission.
You see the ads on television,
momentary flashes across the screen,
the ones for the new car, the vacation,
the diet soda, the prescription drug
(fine print mentioned breathlessly),
all aimed at desire, at parting you
from your money or your vote.
You nod or shrug or smile or frown
and the vision gives way to desire,
meets the reality of what’s in the bank,
gives way to a new burst of desire, and
you see the wife and kids sigh over
the promise of a vacation and reality
gives way to the slight sense of anxiety
over what might happen if you don’t
get that vacation, new car, diet soda,
or prescription (with its fire-hose
description of the fine print), and how
the lives of your family will constrict,
and so you wonder if you can afford
a loan (interest rates are low, after all)
on top of the car payment and
the mortgage and the rise in the price
of groceries and everything else,
that electric bill just took a hefty jump,
and you really need to make
that credit card payment but, oh man,
that vacation would be fantastic, and
then you hear your son say, “Dad,
can we go throw the football?”
Photograph by Kasper Rasmussen via Unsplash. Used with permission.
