Apparently God plants lilies where and how He wants to and then they propagate themselves pretty much at random.  This is my impression (confirmed by people who actually know stuff about gardening) based on the fact that there was, oh, one lily in front of the house when I moved in in 2007 and now there are many, all over the front and back yards.  I sure didn't plant them.  The only flowers I've planted were destroyed--true story--by a June hailstorm.  So all the flowers that I do have are the gifts of divine providence.

Speaking of gifts of divine providence, I may have mentioned once or twice in the course of this blog that the Philadelphia Phillies won the 2008 World Series.  I can't really explain to a non-sports fan or even maybe to a non-Philadelphia-sports fan how meaningful that was.  Think of your favorite possible but so improbable as to seem impossible dream, and think of it coming true.  Now think of it coming true, after a Hamlet-esque delay orchestrated by a very nasty villain (that would be the two-day rain delay; thanks Mr. Selig), on what turned out to be the birthday of the dead-these-eight-years grandfather with whom you and your dead-these-three-years grandmother shared that dream (and every game of every season that you were on Earth together).

 In that exalted state, I threw a bottle of champagne in the freezer (chilling it beforehand would have been bad, bad luck), called a lot of friends, and seized up a framed photo of my grandparents, kissed it, and then turned it in the direction of the TV so they could watch the celebration.  

I stopped crying long enough to grab my chilled bottle of champagne, open it, and commence drinking almost the whole thing.  Yes, almost.  Because one portion I poured out, into the garden, for the chthonic gods (this practice is apparently the Classical origin of pouring funereal libations into the soil; I got this information from my Latin professor many years ago and I know no further background), followed by a kiss blown heavenward.  For my grandparents, for their friend who worked for the Phillies organization, for the man at my grandmother's dialysis clinic who always showed up for treatment in a Phillies hat and may or may not still be alive, for Tug McGraw, for Paul Owens, for Whitey Ashburn, for John Vukovich, for every phan who died before 1980, for every phan who's died since 1980, I poured out libations.

Today I headed outside, preparing to drive over to the gym for a swimming workout.  This was, in itself, a small daily miracle for which I am grateful.  Swimming is one of my favorite sports to do, and I've been swimming since babyhood, but these days I don't get to take swimming for granted.  There's one week a month a woman doesn't get to swim.  On top of that, I destroyed my gastrointestinal health with stress during the adjunct/job searching years of my academic career and have never fully recovered.  Without getting graphic, there are many days it's in my and everyone else's interest for me to avoid a public pool.  There's also a pair of car accidents in my past that have left me with some nasty recurrent joint pain.  This morning, GI stuff could have gone one way or the other, and the joint pain was so bad from head to toe I had trouble getting around the house.  I sat still, did some work I had to do for tomorrow, ate lunch, gradually felt better on both counts, and decided it was a swimming day.

In any case, on the way to one miracle, I spotted another.   Beside my front walkway, near where the celebratory World Series champagne hit the soil, a couple lilies have been coming on.  I knew they'd open any day now, and I figured they'd be yellow like every other lily on the property.  

I looked down.  They're open.  They're white with red stripes, like the uniform of a certain 2008 World Series winning team.  I didn't plant them.  But there they are.  I looked up to blow another kiss heavenward, and was temporarily blinded by the bright sun.