children spill from houses
bearing big new backpacks
hurrying to board yellow school buses
bronzed sunrise spreads
bringing light to see
one scarlet crepe myrtle leaf
among skittering dried oak leaves
crimson blossoms top pineapple sage and salvia
hummingbirds hover for sweet nectar
then continue their journey
lemons ripen, heavy on sagging branches
I prick my finger on a thorn
blood drop rolls down yellow fruit
I hear a call of geese heading south
September turning
Summer was coming to an end
light came later and left sooner
settling on leaves the trees already considered letting go
sunburned pastures waited for thunderstorms
that came one afternoon to soak into the grateful ground
we listened for September’s song of change
Summer was coming to an end.
Right now I am unable to take walks in the yard or neighborhood that provided my opportunities for photography for so long. But I did spend time on our back porch and I watered the Christmas cactus starter plant that my sister in law gave us when she downsized to an apartment. Since neither of us travels now, this connection of memory and gratitude is precious. As the water trickled into the plant’s dry soil, I remembered the buds and blooms that delighted us before Christmas last year. It is almost a Thanksgiving Cactus. So I practice the reduction mentioned in the words below. I may miss gathering flowers to bring inside, digging and planting and harvesting in the garden. But my needs of the spirit as mentioned in meaning, purpose, and friendship are met. In tending this one small succulent plant, I find those things. I did photograph the first beginning bloom last year. I can watch for the buds that will come later.
.”It is said that the longest journey begins with one step. So it is with simplicity. There is no one place to begin, but as good a place as any is to simplify our desires. Both our emotional needs for things and our actual physical needs can be simplified. Learn to know the difference between real emotional needs and addictions. The complexity of our lives is directly related to our material desires. Most of our real needs are of the spirit, such as meaning, purpose, and friendship. By simplifying our material desires our lives will become less burdensome…”
~ Arthur Gish
This photograph and part of the following narrative was posted for Mother’s Day 2 years ago in a different blog, one that is a family story keeper.. I read the comment I made then and am flooded with both memories and new learning. In those comments I said “This branch of rosemary leans into the bloom of an Amaryllis that still grows from a bulb that many years ago bloomed in Mother’s room. Rosemary stands for remembrance. The Amaryllis reminds me of perseverance.” I am still reminded of those important things, but in a different way. The following winter both the rosemary and the amaryllis fell victims to a killing freeze, one that was called the Valentine freeze which wiped out many plants, even those considered hardy in Southeast Texas. I am glad for the picture, which helps me remember the qualities they reflected. I am learning perserverance and endurance in new ways.
As I said in that post, writing is healing for me. At that time I was healing from a back injury. Since then I have had 3 hospitalizations and a major lung surgery. I needed to be reminded of my resolve to live in the moments of today, knowing I cannot add anxiety or fear for the future to the load. I am thankful for many things, among them all the things my mother taught me, including endurance that leaned on faith. Here is a late Mother’s Day tribute.
For Opal
she played the first piano notes I ever heard,
loved all the old Baptist hymns plus
Rustic Dance and I Love You a Bushel and a Peck
took me to piano lessons and made sure I practiced
when I played my piano today, it was a tribute to her
she found the prettiest cloth to make my dresses
smoothing fabric on her bed, laying the tissue patterns, cutting with care
sitting for hours at her Singer
in front of the window where Hawthorne bloomed
pinning and fitting before hand-stitching hems
and teaching me that, too
she brought me yellow roses when I was a young mother of 3 sons
Tyler roses, tight yellow buds in a bunch
in her last years there were petals of yellow sticky notes
to remind me she loved me
I miss her laughter,
the magazine and newspaper clippings she used to send in letters
she had the most beautiful handwriting
I miss the way she loved coffee
the way she smelled of face powder and Tide
I miss sitting by her,
her wrinkled hands clapping with joy or clasped in prayer
clinging by faith until it was by sight
An 8 point star quilted by Mary Clyde Terrell (1887-1977)
Today is a day for Solstice musing. A day containing the moment of turning, the marking of winter, the promise of returning light. I want to dwell on that promise and write about darkness and light – but I am drawn to a Crazy Quilt made by my maternal grandmother.
I often bring it out at this time of year because it reminds me of her, of a country Christmas, a scraggly fence row cedar cut for decorating, of homemade gifts and family coming back home for Christmas. As I spread the old quilt out, I admire once again all the love in the repeated patterns and random pieces. I love the briar and feather stitches adorning patches of fabric scraps left from sewing clothing or even the pieces of old clothing. A Crazy Quilt usually uses the fancy cloth from an old church dress or something worn for a special occasion. Some of these quilts have silk or velvet or satin. Grandma used what she had.
So I will use what I have as well. For the first time in all the years I have had this quilt, I am seeing a new message in the pattern. If I only look at a few patches at a time, I miss the bigger picture – the pattern of the 8 point star. Stunned by a new perspective, I am called to the symbol of this star. An 8 point star is the symbol of a compass. It speaks of navigation and direction.
This fourth week of Advent, I feel the cadence of pounding hearts and plodding feet – Joseph and Mary on their way to Bethlehem, the wise men who saw a star that was so different it sent them on a distant journey. I imagine their desperate need for direction and how they sought it. Grandma’s 8 point star reminds me that I have a compass, that I will be given the navigation I need for Advent, for Christmas, and beyond.
These days of quarantine and isolation require focus to capture moments of blessing and beauty. Even without roses in my garden, if I pay attention, I don’t have to look far to be surprised by joy and simple lessons from growing things. My friend hand stamped some concrete blocks with the lines I quote so often from Mary Oliver “Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.” I think of her hard work, pressing the letters one by one into the hardening blocks. I think of her smile when she brought them to our back yard. No hugs as we once would have enjoyed. No lingering visit with thoughtful conversation. But a sparkling smile and eyes that danced and the gift of her hands needed to be enough, so they were.The blocks are not laid like stepping stones but standing at the edge of roses and touch-me-nots where I see them from my bedroom window.
If you are not familiar with the old fashioned flower called touch-me-not, it is lovely and unusual. When the flowers fade, fat seed pods grow rounder and fuller until they pop open at the slightest touch, scattering seeds. All the flowers behind the stones in the photo below have returned from last year’s seeds. Seeds of hope are nourished right now in what can feel like a hopeless time.
The flowers preach and these stones sing out love and promise.
Consider the Lilies of the Field
Flowers preach to us if we will hear:
The rose saith in the dewy morn:
I am most fair;
Yet all my loveliness is born
Upon a thorn.
The poppy saith amid the corn:
Let but my scarlet head appear
And I am held in scorn;
Yet juice of subtle virtue lies
Within my cup of curious dyes.
The lilies say: Behold how we
Preach without words of purity.
The violets whisper from the shade
Which their own leaves have made:
Men scent our fragrance on the air,
Yet take no heed
Of humble lessons we would read.
But not alone the fairest flowers:
The merest grass
Along the roadside where we pass,
Lichen and moss and sturdy weed,
Tell of His love who sends the dew,
The rain and sunshine too,
To nourish one small seed.
Source: Christina Rosetti , Goblin Market, The Prince’s Progress, and Other Poems
“We must try to take life moment by moment. The actual present is pretty tolerable I think, if only we refrain from adding to its burden that of the past and the future.”
~ C.S. Lewis in Letters to an American Lady
Yesterday one of my granddaughters called me to ask questions from her 6th grade art assignment. When she finished interviewing me, I asked her the same questions. She will be 12 this year. I will be 80. We both have questions; we both have some answers. There are questions that seem impossible to answer. This week marks the one year mark of recovery for me after a serious injury. Now, our world is reeling from injury of more kinds than we can count. I am thankful that in this prayer from Every Moment Holy by Doug McKelvey.I see the words “But You…”
“In a world so wired and interconnected,
our anxious hearts are pummeled by
an endless barrage of troubling news.
We are daily aware of more grief, O Lord,
than we can rightly consider,
of more suffering and scandal
than we can respond to, of more
hostility, hatred, horror, and injustice
than we can engage with compassion.
But you, O Jesus, are not disquieted by such news of cruelty and terror and war.
You are neither anxious nor overwhelmed.
You carried the full weight of the suffering of a broken world when you hung upon
the cross, and you carry it still.
When the cacophony of universal distress unsettles us, remind us that we are but small
and finite creatures, never designed to carry the vast abstractions of great burdens,
for our arms are too short and our strength is too small. Justice and mercy, healing and
redemption, are your great labors.
And yes, it is your good pleasure to accomplish
such works through your people,
but you have never asked any one of us
to undertake more than your grace
will enable us to fulfill.
Guard us then from shutting down our empathy
or walling off our hearts because of the glut of
unactionable misery that floods our awareness.
You have many children in many places
around this globe. Move each of our hearts
to compassionately respond to those needs
that intersect our actual lives, that in all places
your body might be actively addressing
the pain and brokenness of this world,
each of us liberated and empowered by
your Spirit to fulfill the small part
of your redemptive work assigned to us.
Give us discernment
in the face of troubling news reports.
Give us discernment
to know when to pray,
when to speak out,
when to act,
and when to simply
shut off our screens
and our devices,
and to sit quietly
in your presence,
casting the burdens of this world
upon the strong shoulders
of the one who
alone
is able to bear them up”.
Amen.
This liturgy is from Every Moment Holy by Doug McKelvey.
It is the last day of 2019. Will my thoughts be of the past year or will I pause on the cusp of a new beginning? I am asking questions. What is my growing edge? How am I able to move beyond unwanted circumstance and find new wonder, new ways to encourage, new resolve? What is your growing edge?
“Look well to the growing edge. All around us worlds are dying and new worlds are being born;all around us life is dying and life is being born. The fruit ripens on the tree, the roots are silently at work in the darkness of the earth against a time when there shall be no new lives, fresh blossoms, green fruit. Such is the growing edge! It is the extra breath from the exhausted lung, the one more thing to try when all else has failed, the upward reach of life when weariness closes in upon all endeavor. This is the basis of hope in moments of despair, the incentive to carry on when times are out of joint and men have lost their reason, the source of confidence when worlds crash and dreams whiten into ash. The birth of the child – life’s most dramatic answer to death – this is the growing edge incarnate. Look well to the growing edge”. ~ Howard Thurman
On this first day of Advent 2019, I am drawn to these photographs I took early one morning from our back porch. I learn so much from paying attention to gifts of green and lingering mist on the lake and leaves in our garden.
Water for Dry Roots
Lord, send my roots rain.
I need water for dried up hope.
I stand on tiptoe, reaching for Light.
I yearn to be watered by Grace.
I need water for dried up roots
Clouds of unknowing clear.
I can be watered by Grace
leaving drops for my growing roots.
Clouds of unknowing lift,
bathing my thirsty soul.
Grace gathers on my greening heart.
I have a God of green hope.
Gratitude salts my tears.
Thank you for sending rain.
Roots grow again.
I reach toward Light.
Simple pantoum, inspired by need, by receiving the gift of these photos on a morning I so needed to be reminded, and by Advent readings.
Stones and Feathers 