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Watch for Rescue

A certain darkness is needed to see the stars.

—Osho

When we lived in Bahrain, every week I would drive through an alley where the same housedresses were drying on the clothesline outside the house on the corner. Bright florals gracing an otherwise run-down neighborhood. A dark area of town, to be honest.

In fact, this neighborhood was consistently the site of burning tires and violence because of the civil rights riots we lived in and around. This particular alley was a volatile little pocket subjected night after night to tear gas and graffiti. We wouldn’t go there after sunset, but every morning I drove through the alley and every morning it showed signs of the previous evening’s anger and uprising.

So I loved laundry day. The festive dresses flapping in the breeze were always especially stunning. Right next to scorched concrete. Right next to angry graffiti. Pretty pinks. Bright turquoise. Greens. Browns like rich earth. One shoulder of tiny floral pinned over the shoulder of a larger scale floral, a dozen or so down the line that way. Like the prettiest store window you’ve ever seen.

For me, there’s so much poetry in a juxtaposition. I love when worlds collide, moments overlap, and we have the everydayness of laundry happening there in the midst of heartbreak.

Sometimes life is a terrorized alley of burning tires and graffiti and fear. And then we see—against all odds—a row of humble housedresses rebelliously waving in the face of the darkness, like brazen little flags. Scenes like this speak the words our souls are longing to say:

I will not let the Hard thing bury me. I will not be hidden behind the rubble. I might be scared but I am resilient. I might be humble but I will rise against the bullies and the hooligans. I will get up and wash something.

I was recently standing on the shore of Lake Tahoe, which is drought-low, and the shoreline is pushed back over a hundred yards from where it normally starts. Ground is bare where water once was. Lots of gravelly ground. Where the water had previously been, someone had gathered medium-sized rocks, maybe a hundred of them, and fashioned a labyrinth in the middle of the exposed expanse. Kids walked single-file through the spiral, carrying their buckets and shovels, laughing. Tourists stopped to take pictures of the formation. I watched a few adults walk the coil quietly.

These metaphors—the housedresses in the midst of madness, the sacred path in the midst of drought—are eternity colliding with earth.

In 1 Samuel, God used the most humble to fell the most hooligan. He took a shepherd and he put him up against a giant, and the shepherd boy with his five smooth stones and unarmored body prevailed. Young David, holding the head of his opponent in his hands, looked at the armies who had been laughing at him moments before and said, “Everyone will know that the Lord does not need weapons to rescue his people.”1

God rescues us with housedresses. He rescues us with smooth stones. He rescues us with paths in the wasteland. He rescues us with mica, pepper trees, bougainvillea blooms.

So the next time you feel threatened or intimidated or shamed or silenced, and the Soul Bullies are calling for your very self on a platter delivered into the hands of your plaguing enemies, you can think about these Bahraini housedresses, strung in a line, shoulder to shoulder, hanging directly above pocked asphalt and burning rubble. You can think of David, bringing a giant down with one blow. You can think of the rock path formed on barren land. Markers of hope. Reminders of victory. A nova in the darkness.

Reflection & Expression

Write about something beautiful that has emerged from something difficult.

For Your Brazen Board

Find an image of rescue or victory.