Sea Monkeys and Peace Lilies

Okay, you know by the title of this entry that there’s no way to make this blog too deep.  I haven’t had any soul-searching conversations with anyone nor has anything really amusing happened to me in the last couple days, so you may want to skip reading today’s unless you are a true Nathon Blog Fan.  I was just noticing today that the sea monkeys in my office are still alive.  “Big deal!” you may say.  Well, it is considering I haven’t fed them in… oh… 6 months.  They’re living off the algae that’s growing inside the little plastic container they came with.  What’s even more remarkable is that I’ve had them now for about 14 months.  Their lifespan is about 3 months at most.  So obviously they’re making babies and dying – the whole ‘circle of life’ thing going on.

Alright, I know what you must be thinking… “Why does a 33 year-old man have sea monkeys in his office?”  I’m not sure myself.  It was June of 2002.  I was at the mall picking up lunch for people in the office when I saw the sea monkey kit in a store window.  I was warned when I was young that it’s all a scam – that they look nothing like they do on the box… you know… like miniature people swimming around, playing football, driving cars and searching for sunken treasure.  I was told they look more like swimming bugs.  But I was still curious.  So I shelled out my $14.95 and went back to the office ready to be a father.

After lunch I followed the instructions to the letter… filling the plastic container with lukewarm water… treating the water with the saline solution… waiting 8 hours before adding the pouch of eggs into the water.  After doing all this I looked upon my creation and saw… well, I saw a plastic container with water that looked like someone sneezed into it..  So I set it aside for a week.

After a week I looked back inside to see movement!  Well… at least I thought I saw movement.  Imagine little white dots the size of the period at the end of this sentence swimming (or maybe it’s just the water moving them) around in tiny, tiny circles.  That’s what I saw.  The instructions said that at this point I should start feeding them growth food from another little pouch that was in the box on a weekly basis.  I remember thinking to myself that the food wouldn’t last very long and looked on the website (yes, there is a sea monkeys website http://www.sea-monkeys.com ) and found out in order to get a replacement pouch of food I’d have to special order it and signup for stuff and all that.  So I thought “forget it” and that I would get a goldfish when I ran out of food and watch him go to town on the little suckers.  But something happened on the way to the goldfish store (figuratively, not literally).  They kinda grew on me (figuratively and literally this time).  In about a month they grew to about a quarter of an inch long, and they looked like.. well, they looked like swimming bugs, but they were my swimming bugs.  I saw them grow and… ehem… mate and have babies and die.

So I decided to see how long I could keep them alive.  Well, about six months ago, I was just about to run out of food, so I decided to just stop feeding them and see how long they could survive on the algae.  I think I read somewhere that if you stop cleaning the container enough algae will grow in it to sustain them.  So with some trepidation I put the pouch aside, and sure enough, eventually they started munching on that nasty green stuff.  So now they’re eating the algae and having a ball.  A week ago, I only saw one left, so I thought – oh well, we had a good run.  But just today I saw a bunch of swimming, white periods and was surprisingly relieved.

Did I just write a 500 word essay on sea monkeys? Hmmm…

Anyways, I said the title of this thing was “sea monkeys and peace lilies”, so if you’re still with me, let’s go.

When I first moved to Maryland almost 9 years ago I only took what I could fit in my car.  That’s it.  So my first apartment was really barren – so barren it was kind of depressing.  So I went to the local K-mart garden center and purchased a little potted plant.  The tag on it said “Peace Lily.”  It was actually kinda pitiful.  It only had about 3 leaves on it.  I figured it would probably die in a couple months because I’ve never owned a plant I didn’t kill through neglect up to that point.  So there it sat in my empty apartment – just me and the foliage.  It really didn’t grow at all that first few months.  In fact, it looked really sick.  I noticed a co-worker had a plant that looked really nice so I asked her what I was doing wrong.  She asked, “Do you water it?”

“Duh, of course I water it!” I replied.

“Well, how often do you water it?” She inquired.

“Everyday, of course!” I answered.

This is when she burst out in raucous laughter and informed me that I was severely over-watering my plant and that it’s a miracle it was still alive after 3 months of that kind of abuse.

Oops.

So anyway, I limited my watering to about once a week, and it didn’t look so sick anymore.  But still it wasn’t growing very fast.  However, every year around Easter, it would bloom a single flower which let me know that all was not lost.  And so it was for about 6 years… me and my little runt plant.

When I changed jobs about three years ago, I decided that I should take my plant to work and leave it in my office.  I really wasn’t home that much, and my office needed a little something to keep it from looking too depressing.  I noticed a co-worker of mine also had a peace lily.  It was huge.  I told her that I, too, had a peace lily and showed her mine.  “How long have you had it?”  She asked.

“Oh, about 6 years.”  I replied.

“Oh my.  Why is it so small?  Do you feed it plant food?”  She inquired.

“Ummm… plant food?”  I stammered.

Total deja-vu hit me as she came back from her office giggling while she inserted a plant food spike into the soil of my pitiful plant.  She informed me that I’d been starving my plant for 6 years and that it’s a miracle it lasted that long.

Oops.

So now I have a healthy, vibrant peace lily that’s growing in my office.  It must be at least twice the size it was just a couple years ago.  And for the first time ever it is blooming twice in one year – and not just one blossom. I count… 1… 2… 3… 4… 5… blossoms.  I don’t know how it survived this long, but I must be doing something right.  I think I’d be kind of sad if it ever died… I know, I know it’s just a plant, but again, it’s my plant.

Okay, so what’s the moral of the story?  Oh man, is this blog turning into one of those?  I’m sorry, I can’t help it.  What I see in both my sea monkeys and my peace lily (both within inches of each other on my bookshelf here) is an illustration of what it can be like caring for the body of the church.  Most of the people who give their time and effort to help build it up really have no idea what they’re doing most of the time.  We learn through trial and error.  And we have to be patient.  Sometimes we even have to stop doing something for the benefit of the body – so that they can learn to feed themselves for a while.  We may not see results all that quickly and may even be tempted to pack it all up and leave.  But the Holy Spirit is made of sturdier stuff.  Even through our mistakes, God is sovereign and helps us make it through.  It’s what keeps us going to the prayer meetings that are only attended by the pastor, a deacon, and a few members.  It’s what motivates us to stand in the rain directing traffic in the parking lot.

And if you stick around long enough something happens to you.  You really start to care about this seemingly scrawny, wretched thing.  It is not by our love that this is possible.  It is the love of Christ which we share.  So we keep pressing on.  Hoping beyond hope that someday people’s lives will be changed.  We wait for the day when all the heartache and struggle will be cashed in for joy.  And maybe someday… someday we will see something beautiful blossom – even if that day is in heaven.

So, my discouraged brothers and sisters, take heart.  Keep attending those tiny prayer meetings.  Keep talking to strangers you’ll probably never see again in the fellowship time after service.  Keep making that kim-bap at 5AM for the missions fundraiser.  It may just be a matter of time.  Don’t you want to be around when that happens?

Epilogue: About 45 minutes after writing this, I went to my church’s prayer meeting and found out that our head pastor had handed in his resignation and will leave our church at the end of September.  But I won’t erase what I just wrote.  I still believe it… avec tout mon coeur.