Consider the lilies
02/08/15 05:30
It was President Grover Cleveland who signed the proclamation establishing the Nez Perce Indian Reservation. The order demanded that the Nez Perce move from their home in the Wallowa Valley in what is today Oregon to a reduced area in the Lapwai region of northern Idaho. Joseph, known as Chief Joseph to most of the country, led a group of the Palouse tribe out of the area, seeking political asylum in Canada with the people of Sitting Bull. General Howard pursued them over 1,100 miles across Idaho and Montana. By the time they were forced to surrender, 150 Nez Perce had been killed or wounded. From the point of their capture they were taken to Fort Leavenworth in Kansas and from there to Oklahoma where they were forced to remain for seven years, many dying of epidemic diseases. When they were allowed to return to the northwest, some were allowed to settle on reservation land around Kooskia, Idaho and others were forced to live on the Colvill Indian Reservation in northern Washington.
The stories of Joseph and his people have been well told in other places and are easily available. This blog is not really about their journeys or the military actions taken against them.
By the time we lived in Idaho in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, the stories of Joseph and the Nez Perce were on historical markers and signs along us highway 95, the major north-south road in that state with a narrow northern panhandle and a huge wilderness at its center. Alongside the highway is a place known as Camas Prairie. These days the prairie is mostly private farmland, but the northern section of the prairie is part of the Nez Perce Indian Reservation and has been left as it was centuries ago when it was a traditional gathering place for the Nez Perce. They came together in the early summer each year to harvest camas roots. It was a series of incidents that occurred in that area as the Nez Perce were gathering camas on their way to their newly assigned reservation that touched off the flight and running battle in which Joseph and the Palouse evaded General Howard.
Camas is a plant common in many meadows across the west. The flowers are generally purple, but can range from white to light violet to blue-purple, depending on soil conditions and other factors. Camas stems have lots of little blossoms growing at the top. They can grow as high as two or three feet when the prairie is lush in the spring. The bulbs of the plants are nutritious and were a staple of the native diet for thousands of years before settlers arrived. They have to be harvested in the spring or early summer when the plants are in bloom because there is another plant that looks similar, but has a pure white flower, that is toxic. Sometimes called deathcamas, the bulbs of the two plants are very similar.
Camas is also known as wild hyacinth and camas lily. They are not hyacinths, nor are they lilies, but rather a member of the asparagus family. The name lily, however, seems appropriate if you happen to catch the meadows when the camas are all in bloom.
It is Camas Prairie that I think of when I read Jesus words, “Consider the lilies of the field.” I can picture the slender stalks with their six-pedaled violet flowers rising above the shorter leaves and other grasses of the prairie, opening to the endless blue of the sky above. There is something about the scene that makes you want to walk out to the meadow and lie down to look up at the flowers and sky above. Those beautiful flowers were simply a way to identify the edible bulbs beneath the surface, which were ground into flour for cooking and baking by native people. But I can’t help but reflect that they must have also sensed the deep beauty of the plants and seen what I see when I look out across the prairie.
When you see the prairie in bloom, you can easily believe that the purpose of the camas is not primarily food, but beauty itself. Food is a kind of byproduct of the beauty that exists. And you can imagine that the beauty existed long before it was even recognized by humans. The field is beautiful whether or not we visit and witness its beauty. The beauty is independent of the food value of the plant.
It is worthy of our consideration.
Because we often think of the practical when we think of the value of an object or of a life. We think that nutrition trumps beauty when we consider the value of something. And we often think that our doing - our producing - is more important than our being. We bury our lives in plans and papers, appointments and meetings, spreadsheets and budgets as if we have value only if we produce some tangible product - usually measured by the amount of money that we have earned.
Jesus invites us to consider the value of just being.
Through the power of love we have worth and value that goes far beyond what we produce. The work we do is only part of the story of the people that we are. Through the power of love we begin to recognize that even when we are doing nothing we have lives that matter. Even when we sleep we have value.
And, when our life journey reaches its conclusion what matters will not be our ability to produce, but rather our ability to love.
I need to be reminded of this truth constantly these days as I become more and more aware that time and age have placed some restrictions on my ability to produce. I work slower than once was the case. There are weeks when I produce less than previously. It is time to learn (or re-learn) what is most important in my life.
Perhaps it is time to revisit Camas Prairie and be reminded once again: “Yet Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.”
The stories of Joseph and his people have been well told in other places and are easily available. This blog is not really about their journeys or the military actions taken against them.
By the time we lived in Idaho in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, the stories of Joseph and the Nez Perce were on historical markers and signs along us highway 95, the major north-south road in that state with a narrow northern panhandle and a huge wilderness at its center. Alongside the highway is a place known as Camas Prairie. These days the prairie is mostly private farmland, but the northern section of the prairie is part of the Nez Perce Indian Reservation and has been left as it was centuries ago when it was a traditional gathering place for the Nez Perce. They came together in the early summer each year to harvest camas roots. It was a series of incidents that occurred in that area as the Nez Perce were gathering camas on their way to their newly assigned reservation that touched off the flight and running battle in which Joseph and the Palouse evaded General Howard.
Camas is a plant common in many meadows across the west. The flowers are generally purple, but can range from white to light violet to blue-purple, depending on soil conditions and other factors. Camas stems have lots of little blossoms growing at the top. They can grow as high as two or three feet when the prairie is lush in the spring. The bulbs of the plants are nutritious and were a staple of the native diet for thousands of years before settlers arrived. They have to be harvested in the spring or early summer when the plants are in bloom because there is another plant that looks similar, but has a pure white flower, that is toxic. Sometimes called deathcamas, the bulbs of the two plants are very similar.
Camas is also known as wild hyacinth and camas lily. They are not hyacinths, nor are they lilies, but rather a member of the asparagus family. The name lily, however, seems appropriate if you happen to catch the meadows when the camas are all in bloom.
It is Camas Prairie that I think of when I read Jesus words, “Consider the lilies of the field.” I can picture the slender stalks with their six-pedaled violet flowers rising above the shorter leaves and other grasses of the prairie, opening to the endless blue of the sky above. There is something about the scene that makes you want to walk out to the meadow and lie down to look up at the flowers and sky above. Those beautiful flowers were simply a way to identify the edible bulbs beneath the surface, which were ground into flour for cooking and baking by native people. But I can’t help but reflect that they must have also sensed the deep beauty of the plants and seen what I see when I look out across the prairie.
When you see the prairie in bloom, you can easily believe that the purpose of the camas is not primarily food, but beauty itself. Food is a kind of byproduct of the beauty that exists. And you can imagine that the beauty existed long before it was even recognized by humans. The field is beautiful whether or not we visit and witness its beauty. The beauty is independent of the food value of the plant.
It is worthy of our consideration.
Because we often think of the practical when we think of the value of an object or of a life. We think that nutrition trumps beauty when we consider the value of something. And we often think that our doing - our producing - is more important than our being. We bury our lives in plans and papers, appointments and meetings, spreadsheets and budgets as if we have value only if we produce some tangible product - usually measured by the amount of money that we have earned.
Jesus invites us to consider the value of just being.
Through the power of love we have worth and value that goes far beyond what we produce. The work we do is only part of the story of the people that we are. Through the power of love we begin to recognize that even when we are doing nothing we have lives that matter. Even when we sleep we have value.
And, when our life journey reaches its conclusion what matters will not be our ability to produce, but rather our ability to love.
I need to be reminded of this truth constantly these days as I become more and more aware that time and age have placed some restrictions on my ability to produce. I work slower than once was the case. There are weeks when I produce less than previously. It is time to learn (or re-learn) what is most important in my life.
Perhaps it is time to revisit Camas Prairie and be reminded once again: “Yet Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.”