A garden must combine the poetic and the mysterious with a feeling of serenity and joy.
~ Luis Barragan
plants and rocks and water
change with every shift of light
mystery of creation
murmuring stories
singing ancient songs
One of my favorite places to be still is here, beneath a very old oak tree in our church prayer garden. Its branches spread out over a trickling stream and bubbling fountain and a small labyrinth. In dry times, like our present drought, there is crusty brown growth along its mighty branches. But when we are blessed with rainfall, this turns to vibrant green. It is Resurrection Fern.
At all times I soak up the green and growing refreshment of this place. But it is in the times when I feel drought in my spirit that I come here to be still and know God, and to refill and refuel – the greening of my heart, Eastering.
“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.
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.
stop to savor the shade
linger to breathe in fragrance
rest in silent stillness
“Do not look back in anger, or forward in fear, but around in awareness.” ~ James Thurber
fish flashing in lavender shadow
lily lifting purple wonder
prayers unfurling
hope
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.”
roots reaching past drought
pushing up through rocky path
surviving In sun or shadow,
blooming with perennial grace
alive
map 6-14-2013
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
Gardening is an instrument of grace. – May Sarton
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
Stones and Feathers 