In our garden there are two pomegranate trees sagging with fruit..I remember the first pomegranate I ate – how much fun it was to dig the seeds out, how sweet the tiny pop of juice from each one.  Now I love cutting the tough rouged skin and plunging the halves into a bowl of water to separate the seeds.  Watching the whole process from the leafing of the tree, waiting for each scarlet blossom to open and begin the nubbins which grow to the fruit we are ready to harvest is a joy.  I understand that the pomegranate is a symbol of rebirth, of resurrection.  I read that it has been used throughout history and in almost every religion as a symbol of humanity’s most fundamental beliefs and desires.  Almost every part has come to symbolize something . . . its shape, color, seeds, juice.  

I am glad we planted the pomegranate trees.  I am thankful for the bounty they provide this year.

Blessed be the Lord for the beauty of summer and spring, for the air, the water, the verdure, and the song of birds.” – Carl von Linnaeus

All summer long I have used a lovely screen saver on my computer, a painting of a grape vine spreading across a terra-cotta wall that has the above words at the bottom. This morning it suddenly came to me that recently I have been doing what many in South Texas are doing – lamenting the drought and heat and enduring summer with little grace.  I have not exactly been blessing the summer and the air even though the verdure and birdsong and water are most certainly noticed everyday with gratitude.  I read the words slowly again, and wondered as I often do when absorbing an artwork of words, about the person who wrote them.

Thinking he must certainly be a poet, I Googled Carl von Linnaeus and to my surprise found that he is credited with originating our system of classifying and naming living things  – a man of organization and systems who recognized beauty in the work of Creation. He was the son of a Lutheran pastor who is described as “an intelligent gardener.”  I smile as I recognize a touch of Genesis here, thinking of the “garden of Sweden and a man who was named Carl but took up Adam’s work of naming.

I am thankful for the reminder.  And on this day, one more of triple digit heat, longing for rain in the worst drought in South Texas history, I bless the air and the birds and the beauty of summer. Fresh breeze blows over my soul.  Verdure.