Category Archives: Blessing

Looking Up

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JeremyLight

I am indebted to my son, Jeremy Parker, for receiving this image.  Thank you for looking up.

” Each one of us somewhere, somehow, has known, if only for a moment or so, something of what it is to feel the shattering love of God, and once that has happened, we can never rest easy again for trying somehow to set that love forth not only in words, myriads of words, but in our lives themselves…we have scarcely any choice but to go on trying no matter what, and there is much that is beautiful and brave and true about it. Yet we must remember this other word too: “Unless you turn and become like children …. “-Originally published in The Magnificent Defeat by Frederic Buechner

We are hours away from the beginning of Advent.  My practice this year will be to record my journey here.  Jeremy’s picture helps me see new wonder and light looking not just through this piece of stained glass at my kitchen window, but following as it points upward to the light, helping me turn and become like a child in the expectant waiting of Advent.

Sunsets and Sonnet 73

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Today is my birthday, and I almost missed one of my gifts!  While I was thinking about how many sunsets and sunrises I have been gifted in 73 years, I almost failed to go outside and witness the blaze of glory that is today’s sunset.  We do that, don’t we?  We busy ourselves with good thoughts and activity and miss the glory of what is happening right this minute.  I am thankful for every day and every blessing I have been given.  But I want to practice being present in the moment that will pass forever if  I don’t (in Mary Oliver’s words) pay attention, be astonished and tell about it.  Today’s sunset will be remembered, but the gift it has given me is more than its beauty.  Help me, Lord, to celebrate the now.031

That time of year thou mayst in me behold (Sonnet 73)   William Shakespeare

That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou see'st the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west;
....
 This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,
 To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

Don’t Let Love Lose

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don’t let love lose

because of tripping and stumbling

don’t let light die

though it may flicker

as petals shatter

and thorns bring blood,

don’t let the rose die from drought

let it bud again with fragrant bloom

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let healing happen

I choose you again

let love win

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Prayer

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Grace

Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace;
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is error, the truth;
Where there is doubt, the faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
And where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master, Grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled, as to console;
To be understood, as to understand;
To be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life

~ attributed to St. Francis of Assisi

Sitting in the Garden

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“Sitting in your garden is a feat to be worked at with unflagging determination and single-mindedness – for what gardener worth his salt sits down. I am deeply committed to sitting in the garden.”       – Mirabel Osler

Sitting still is necessary for so many things: I listen better when I sit still.  I hear things unheard when I am crunching on the gravel or digging or clipping.  The butterflies and hummingbirds come closer when I am still.  The cardinal pair lingers longer on the fence.  Appreciation and savoring of beauty may run after me when I am on the move but they settle around my shoulders like a soft cover when I sit still.  And in the stillness I begin to settle – the cloudy debris of things which can fret and hurt begin to drift to the bottom, leaving pure, clear knowing.  Holy moments can happen when I sit in my garden.

Blessing of Light

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They can be like a sun, words.

They can do for the heart

what light can for a field.

-St. John of the Cross, Love Poems from God (trans. Daniel Ladinsky)

This weather worn garden sign is propped on the fence behind my cucumber vines.  When I gathered my small harvest, I thought of these words.  The blessing of light, along with soil and moisture produced something good and nourishing.  The word Peace reminds me that my words have that potential when I use them to bless and encourage.

Sadly, the opposite can also be true.  Words spoken in haste or frustration may damage growth and wither relationship. I can choose to speak light and blessing.  I pray to speak Peace.

Reflection

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Photography by Skye Parker, my granddaughter

These windows at the back of our house mirror a rose arbor covered with blooms just a month ago. But summer arrives today says the calendar as well as the temperature, so the scanty blooms that are still there are pale and dried.  The reflection today seems to say “all gone away.” But I know this rose. It is hardy and tenacious, with a reputation for surviving even a hurricane. I know it will bloom again. I will not mourn for lost blossoms. I will enjoy the many shades of green in its leaves, admire the lacy intertwining of its branches. I will wonder at the raindrops caught in spider webs woven in rose canes.  I will count the bird nests perched inside the arbor’s protection, and rest in the shade it gives me. And I will be grateful for eyes that can see the rose bush reflected in the windows of home.

“Whether one looks at a star, a child, a moment of sorrow, or a time of gladness, blessed is the ordinary…I believe the small moment is the carrier of God’s most endearing gift, and that it must not be permitted to slip away unsavored and unappreciated…If one accepts each day as a gift from the Father’s hand, one may sometimes hear a voice saying, “Open it. I invite you to share with me in these little appointments with myself as we try to unwrap the hidden beauties in an ordinary day.”      Gerhard Frost in Blessed is the Ordinary

2012 in review

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The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The new Boeing 787 Dreamliner can carry about 250 passengers. This blog was viewed about 1,700 times in 2012. If it were a Dreamliner, it would take about 7 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

Thank you for reading and commenting on Stones and Feathers!  I enjoy sharing these images and thoughts with you, and am looking forward to “blessing the space between us” in 2013.  (Phrase from the title of John O’Donahue’s book, which I hope you will include in your reading list this year)