Category Archives: Lent

Easter Joy

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Our granddaughters are a joy for many reasons.  One of those reasons is the way they express their own joy.  On Saturday, long before we had fun coloring Easter eggs, and certainly before Easter morning with the excitement of baskets and the donning of frothy pink dresses, Maddie took the sidewalk chalk out to decorate our front walk.  She worked on several Easter egg drawings, but at the beginning of the sidewalk, she drew the pink cross you see in this photograph.  If you look very closely, you can see at the top what she thinks the cross means.  “Jesus Loves You.”

Markers

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I have previously written about my love for feathers, how a long time I ago I began to recognize the finding of a feather as a small signal that God is present.  Often when I pray for myself or others I pray for hiding under the shadow of His wing.  It is very simple, I choose these tiny found objects as reminders of how God has been and will be with me.  This is not the only reminder, there is evidence all around me in my home and garden.  Recently as I was reading passages in the Old Testament which speak of the stone markers erected to remind both present and future generations of God’s help, I realized these and my feathers are doing the same thing – simply saying “remember!”

“Samuel took a large stone and placed it between the towns of Mizpah and Jeshanah. He named it Ebenezer—”the stone of help”—for he said, “Up to this point the Lord has helped us!” —1 Samuel 7:12, NLT

Here I raise mine Ebenezer;
hither by thy help I’m come;
and I hope, by thy good pleasure,
safely to arrive at home.
Jesus sought me when a stranger,
wandering from the fold of God;
he, to rescue me from danger,
interposed his precious blood. —Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing

Surviving

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Gardens are such good storytellers!  The climbing rose in this picture is on an arbor by our backyard fish pond.  It is a Peggy Martin rose.  For those who may have never heard this story, I will tell you it is named for the woman who grew it in her garden near New Orleans, along with hundreds of other roses before Hurricane Katrina.  All the roses were under about 20′ of salt water for two weeks following the hurricane. When she was finally able to return to visit their property she found new growth on this one rose, all that remained. In the devastation she also lost her elderly parents, her home, and commercial fishing boat that her husband used to supplement their income.  She didn’t even know the name of the rose since a cutting had been given to her by mother in law who had also been given a cutting.

Dr. Bill Welch from Texas A&M along with other antique rose experts and growers helped to get the newly named “Peggy Martin” rose into the marketplace where proceeds help restore gardens throughout the South devastated by Katrina and other forces of nature.

The story always makes me wonder what made this rose any different from the rest to give it the resilience and fortitude to say “I’m still here and growing better.”   One thing has to be that its roots were stronger and deeper.  I am still thinking about the fact that its cuttings root very easily…it is flexible and can handle change.  The telling of all this has to include a theme of restoration, too.  Out of the Martins’ great loss has come a way to help others.

What a good gardening story!  Soul gardening, too.

Connections

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John Muir said, “When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.”  This year the early blooming trees are particularly beautiful. Redbuds, Huisache, Plums, Bradford pears are a riot of purples and yellows and lacy whites along with still bare branches. When I go for a walk, I often find myself at a standstill, stopped in my tracks at the sight of one tree bursting with color.  A turn of my head brings more flowering.  The trees lead me to each other, all singing songs of fresh starts.

March 1 on a South Texas Country Road

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March 1 on a South Texas Country Road

Winter palette fades.

Painted over by Springing.

Weary gray tinges green.

 

Bare branch silhouette

 Softens, hazed in chartreuse fog.

Baby leaves split tight coats.

 

Shiny buds unfold

Clover, dandelion, moss

Each green different

 

 Why call it Red Bud?

It’s lilac, pink, violet.

Purple vetch vines, twines.

 

 Blue wood violet,

Saffron puffs of sweet Huisache

Fill air with fragrance.

 

Indian Paintbrush

                                             Tiny torches start to blaze,

scatter scarlet flames.

 

Not yet showing bloom,

  Bluebonnets, Crimson Clover

soon add to Spring’s song.

 

 Bleak chill of winter

Gives way to resurrection,

melody of Life.

Ash Wednesday

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In a journal from three years ago, I found thoughts about Ash Wednesday that are much the same I would write today.  “Lent, Day 1.  We are adding readings from Psalms to the few minutes we have before Joe leaves for work in the mornings.  In all my Protestant years growing up, Lent was little recognized most of the time.  I have grown in need and appreciation of these set apart days approaching Easter and in all my observation of the liturgical year.  I crave the structure, need the framework for deepening spiritual sensitivity and awareness.  So begins arranging days and heart and home in new awareness of Eastering.”

Crosses of ashes,

sign of beginning journey,

mark Lenten promise.

The Trellis and the Seed

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The title for a favorite children’s book, The Trellis and the Seed,  provokes thoughts of what emerging parts of life we nurture and support so that new growth and beauty can unfold.  I have given Jan Karon’s book about a moonflower seed and a trellis along with a package of moonflower seeds to my granddaughters and other children.  It is a story of planting and waiting, of faith and hope, a story of creation and shaping and astonishment, a story of tending a garden.  The  latticework  must be strong  as it  balances and supports,  as seeds take root and new green growth stretches  into spaces, bearing fruit and flower, then reseeding for yet more beginnings.

I hold fast to a frame of Grace

Secured, marked, held in place.

One branch of Vine.

Eden to Eternity

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  Included in my writings for Lent, these words are taken from two hymns written for the same hymn tune, Morning Has Broken and Child in a Manger. The original melody was noted by Alexander Fraser from a wandering Scottish Highland minstrel. Mary McDonald (1789 – 1872) wrote the words of the nativity hymn. Later, Eleanor Farjeon wrote words for the same tune which were originally printed in 1931 but not copyrighted until 1957 under its correct title, A Morning Song for the First Day of Spring.

 Until today, I had never considered the two sets of words together and when I did as I listened to the haunting tune, I felt a connection between the thoughts of the two women. My heart filled as I considered the continuity and the depth of holding God’s work of creation, nativity, death, and resurrection in my own thoughts. First Eden, then Bethlehem, then on to Jerusalem.

 Morning has broken,blackbird spoken,

First morning, first bird.

Praise singing and springing.

Sweet rainfall

Heavenly sunlight

First dew, first grass

Praise garden and path.

My sunlight.

My morning.

Newborn Eden displayed

Praise Creator and created.

Then, Manger Child.

Outcast and stranger,

Transgression swaddled,

Wrapped in my wrong.

Child once most holy,

Living that lowly,

Now filled with glory

In salvation story.

Prophesied Wonder,

Royalty revealed.

Word defined… Atoned,

I am His own.

Mary Ann Parker April 12, 2011

Seed Time

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A gardener’s fingers push a hard dry seed into damp earth… patting, putting it to bed.
Covered in a quilt of soil and sprinkled by Spring rain, the seed hears no lullaby.
Awakening and swelling, a wrinkled husk cracks. A living kernel curls and stretches.
Enlarging, changing, pushing aside its grounding.

Covered in a quilt of soil, sprinkled by Spring rain, the seed hears no lullaby.
Quickening to ancient rhythms, birthing stem and leaf.
Enlarging, changing, pushing aside its grounding.
Reaching for light, unfolding, greening.

Quickening to ancient rhythms, birthing stem and leaf
Awakened and swollen, a wrinkled husk cracked, a living kernel unfurled and stretched.
Reached for light, unfolded, greened.
A gardener’s fingers pushed a hard dry seed into damp earth and marveled at its waking

~Mary Ann Parker, March 29, 2011

Sundial and Delphinium

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Hours and days mark Lent’s  journey.

Wilderness days, nights of shadows –

Shaping time, shaping me.

Gathering grace, forging fortitude.

Wilderness days,  nights of shadows –

Grow green, moss.  Bloom, bluest Delphinium.

Gathering grace, forging fortitude

Kaleidoscope of green and blue.

Grow green moss!  Bloom bluest, Delphinium!

Shaping time, shaping me.

Kaleidoscope of green and blue,

Hours and days mark Lent’s journey.

~Mary Ann Parker

In the form of French Pantoum, this is one of a set of Lenten poems.