Category Archives: Spiritual formation

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

A Spiritual Journey

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Every time I enter my front door, even before turning the key in the lock, my eyes rest for a moment on the small engraved stone nestled in the feathers of foxtail fern planted in an urn beside the door.  I take the word into the house with me, breathe deeply, and am grateful once more for being home.  The house itself is only a container for this awareness, though tucked into baseboards and behind walls throughout its rooms are small scripture cards which we placed as the house was built.  The walls are only reminders, with their glad burdens of family pictures and framed statements of faith and hope.  Home is God-given surety inside me.  I love coming home.

“And the world cannot be discovered by a journey of miles,
no matter how long,
but only by a spiritual journey,
a journey of one inch,
very arduous and humbling and joyful,
by which we arrive at the ground at our feet,
and learn to be at home.”

-Wendell Berry

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.

Growth Pushes Boundaries

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The tree was there first, and by my own observation, grew slowly by the man-made brick wall.  I have been walking by this corner for six years.  A year ago, when the first cracks in mortar appeared, I barely noticed.  Now, as bricks begin to crumble and fall, I know they never had a chance unless the tree died.  The lesson for me is simply put:  Growth pushes boundaries.  I would rather grow.

Message in Moss

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Walking in my winter garden, I see some things I might not notice when the drab palette comes back to green and growth. This mossy stone ball reminds me of an organic global map and prompts me on this Valentine’s morning to love all my neighbors, including those beyond my daily shores. I am called to widen my view, open my mind. I pray to know more, in order to better love.

“Love follows knowledge.” ~ Thomas Aquinas

Settle Down

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Where do you go when you feel troubled or unsettled?  Is there a place you find healing?  I don’t have need to go further than my back yard.  I open the kitchen door and go into sanctuary, to retreat, to respite.  I  sit on the stone wall surrounding my herb garden, crush a few leaves of rosemary or mint and breathe deeply.  Breath prayers rewarded with familiar fragrance bring to my attention the joy of growing things.  I walk the flagstone path between the roses and measure countless blessings.  I sit in stillness and wonder by the little pond and watch the silver flashes and ripples, gifts from fish and sunlight.  Quiet is broken only by trickling water and birdsong.  I witness the miracle of beginnings and rhythms as my eyes wander from new buds to the pregnant green of promised daffodils.  I am settled.

Gratitude

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When my granddaughter  receives a present,   she pulls off  paper and bow, looks at her surprise with a giggle of pleasure, saying a sweet  “Thank you!”  The unwrapping and happy surprise come naturally.  She has learned to say Thank You.

I have learned  this, too.

If I can begin and  end  my  day  with  gratitude, then  the gift of that day has been carefully unwrapped, examined, delighted in, and acknowledged.  God has given me a new day and I can choose  to meet it by expressing my gratitude for the life and breath that lets me live it, as well as for work to do and strength to do it.  Before I sleep again, I can choose to thank Him for what my day has held before I claim His peace for rest and refreshment.  Those two bookends hold up my busy days and increase my awareness of being awash in grace.

Years ago I kept a gratitude journal, in which I wrote 3 things I was thankful for every day.  I was recently given another calendar/ gratitude journal, this one leaving 5 spaces for each day.   I love doing this.  I like rereading those entries, because I am reminded of how many things I find for which to be thankful .  Seldom are these related to possessions, although often for relationship.  I am grateful for Plenty.  I am grateful for enough.  Gratitude and Contentment don’t mean the same, but they sure do look alike, so I am sure they are kin.

January 8, 2010:  Today, I am grateful for a friend’s hug, herbs still growing in my January garden, starting a new book, making a memory with Skye and Lauren last night (movie night:  Sound of Music), and these smiles…