Category Archives: faith

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

Questions and Answers

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We are hearing so many stories of tragedy and trauma, of danger and despair.  Some of the horror is magnified by the immediacy with which we now receive the news.  Social media and news reporting brings word and image straight into our homes and hearts from the real-time scene.  “Breaking news” threatens to break us. For some of us, the pain is present in our immediate and extended families  Is there anything we can reply to disillusionment and despair? To the erosion of hope?  To fear?  What does the intersection of faith and art (which this blog addresses) offer in response to this reality? How is our energy best spent in helping each other?

Howard Thurman offers this:  “The mass attack of disillusionment and despair, distilled out of the collapse of hope, has so invaded our thoughts that what we know to be true and valid seems unreal and ephemeral. There seems to be little energy left for aught but futility. This is the great deception…To drink in the beauty that is within reach, to clothe one’s life with simple deeds of kindness, to keep alive a sensitiveness to the movement of the spirit of God in the quietness of the human heart and in the workings of the human mind – this is as always the ultimate answer to the great deception.”

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roots reaching past drought

pushing up through rocky path

surviving In sun or shadow,

blooming with perennial grace

alive

map 6-14-2013

Seeing the Stories

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My pastor reminds us that each time we meet,  there is a story on every pew that can break your heart.  I know some of those stories, and I know that he is right. I also know that we need to hear each other’s stories if we are to know and trust and help each other.

” It always amazes me to think that every house on every street is full of so many stories; so many triumphs and tragedies, and all we see are yards and driveways. ~Glenn Close, American Film and Stage Actress

Part of my daily walk takes me by the front yards of houses in our neighborhood, but the last mile or so of the walk is around a small lake behind the back of houses with wrought iron fences. I see beautiful landscaping, luxurious pools, and groupings of comfortable outdoor furniture.  Some even have outdoor kitchens.  I enjoy my walks, but I very seldom see another person except the few who are on the path for jogging or cycling. The only signs of life are the dogs in several of the back yards.  I don’t see the stories, but I know that they are there.

Wendell Berry expands this need for story in What Are People For?   “When a community loses its memory, its members no longer know one another. How can they know one another if they have forgotten or have never learned one another’s stories? If they do not know one another’s stories, how can they know whether or not to trust one another? People who do not trust one another do not help one another, and moreover they fear one another. And this is our predicament now.”

I want to be a part of a community that has not lost its memory. I do not want to forget.  Writing and blogging is one way I share my story with you, a hospitality of spirit for me.  What about you?  In what ways do you tell your story and how are you able to listen to that of others?

Unencumbered

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Pruning is one of my most difficult tasks, inside and out. But just look how the roses can bloom when rid of all their excess branches and runners!

 Unencumbered

“We learn from our gardens to deal with the most urgent question of the time: How much is enough?”

~Wendell Berry

I must let go of things that weigh me down

I must free myself of cumber

I must pare down, lighten my load

I must go through with this relinquishment.

I must rid myself of too much, too many.

I am called to marvel at quotidian mysteries

to be attentive and astonished

to cultivate inner and outer space

to create time for what matters most

to simplify

Fair Hope

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“The world is indeed full of peril and in it there are many dark places.
But still there is much that is fair. And though in all lands, love is now
mingled with grief, it still grows, perhaps, the greater.”  J.R.R. Tolkien, Lord of the Rings

at the end of a week marked

with  tragedy,  peril,  dark places

help me find the fair

 green pastures, still waters

 light overcoming darkness

 love greater than grief

Mary Ann Parker April 20, 2013

Centering

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Receive each day as 
a resurrection from death, 
as a new enjoyment of life.
[William Law]

I do not skip down a Lenten path singing

my steps are slow, measured

intentional

a labyrinth path reminding

each day

take one step, then another

on toward center

and Song

Finding Beauty

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LastofFeb 026“if you ignore beauty, you will soon find yourself without it,

But if you invest in beauty,

it will remain with you

all the days of your life.”

~ Frank Lloyd Wright

100_1612Remembering the planting and sprouting

watching for beauty of weed and flower

cool dark hours bring both

LastofFeb 045To be still

to be astonished

to see beauty in a cabbage

before it goes into the soup

 

 

Reach

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The beginning of a new year is a time to think about what is important, what needs to be done, who I am called to be.  I like to ponder and come to those thoughts over a period of time, rather than my making resolutions on January 1.  A good way for me to do that is to choose a word for focus.This year I choose the word Reach. LIke these tomato seedlings  in my kitchen, I start where I am, break open my comfort zone, shed what is unnecessary for growth, and celebrate new opportunity in the present – all the while reaching toward the Light.

Recalibrating, relinquishing

Embracing this season of enough

Attentive and astonished

Called to this journey

Holy mystery

Alchemy of Sorrow

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shattered petals fall

fragrant still

garden gift of grace

“Sorrow fully accepted brings its own gifts. For there is alchemy in sorrow. It can be transmitted into wisdom, which, if it does not bring joy, can yet bring happiness.”

— Pearl S. Buck