Morning Glory opens
grace glows in star gift
wrapped in blue tissue
“It is a bold and colossal claim that we put forward – that the whole of life is sacramental, that there are innumerable ‘means of grace’ by which God is revealed and communicated – through nature and through human fellowship and through a thousand things that may become the ‘outward and visible sign’ of ‘an inward and spiritual grace’.”
~ A. Barrett Brown
Photo by Madelyn Claire Parker, age 7
“It is a terrible thing to see and have no vision.” ~ Helen Keller
Today is the birthday of Helen Keller, who could see nothing physically, but who had vision that has blessed many. She might have held this shell without knowing its color and spots, but knowing in tender touch its roundness, spirals and ridges, the precious point where they ended, the way it nestled in her palm and told silent stories of the sea. If we are attentive and tuned to all our senses, we may find new dimensions of beauty in our surroundings. One way of showing gratitude is by using all the senses I have been given to be aware of the world around me, to have vision beyond sight.
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
“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
Remembering the planting and sprouting
watching for beauty of weed and flower
cool dark hours bring both
To be still
to be astonished
to see beauty in a cabbage
before it goes into the soup
I have made it my custom for years now to give myself birthday gifts which no one else can give me. I cherish the hugs and surprises from my husband and children, love every phone call and email, and smile all over with my granddaughters’ “Happy Birthday, Granmary!” But no matter how else I spend my time having a happy day, I give myself music – this is the time when I begin playing my favorite Christmas albums, beginning with James Galway’s Christmas Carol and going on to thrill to an English Handbell Choir, Renaissance pieces by the Tallis Scholars, Handel’s Messiah, and John Denver’s Muppet Christmas, which was the one my little boys loved to listen to when they decorated the Christmas tree. It still makes them laugh and we still play it when the tree is staggering to stand up and be dressed. but I also play Paul Hillyer’s Home to Thanksgiving. And in the last couple of years I have added a gift to myself. I write a list to go along with Hillyer’s music. This is a list of sacred ordinary things from throughout my year and is a way for me to move toward the celebration of Thanksgiving in our family, which also is the springboard for Advent. Since I keep a gratitude journal where I record 5 things I am grateful for each morning, I simply make my birthday list from that journal, choosing 2 or 3 entries for each month in the past year. Just remembering and writing these things is a reminder of hope and joy. What a gift!
Gratitude
In my 72nd year, these are things for which I give thanks:
greens from our garden on the table with peas and cornbread
time to curl up with a book
walking around the lake on a clear, cold day
pain management for Joe
silent room, dark except for Christmas tree lights
Christ, who came, is come, and will come
warming my aching fingers on my coffee cup
my son taking down the Christmas tree and making our dinner
safety during a storm
winter sunshine after the winds
puttering and pruning in the garden
rainbows on the floor from the prism in leaded glass at our front door
the buttery taste of winter squash
memories of babies and boys
my husband’s gentle spirit
morning quiet time
13 bean soup
settling, being settled
deep colors of roses blooming in January
mockingbird singing on top of our rose arbor
“hope is that thing with feathers that perches on the soul and sings….”
Sabbath heart
a perfectly timed call from a dear friend
hoping in, not for
the poetry of Luci Shaw
my nursing education and experience
books on hold at the library
planting Cherokee Purple heirloom tomato seeds
quiet – no rushing to fill with noise
still – no rushing to “do”
Autumn leaves go very near the top of my favorite things list. I grew up a few hundred miles north of where I now live, just far enough away for seasonal change to be much more apparent. I remember watching for the colors to appear when temperatures dropped. After the first frost, scarlet Sumac, yellowing Sycamore and Sweet Gum were blazing drifts of foliage that popped out of the evergreen forests of Pine and Cedar along East Texas roadsides. A few years in Oklahoma are remembered as having beautiful fall colors. Some time living in and near Dallas when our boys were little brought us plenty of pretty leaves and fallen ones to pile up and scuffle through. My sweet niece sent me pictures of the brilliant confetti of New Jersey leaves just last week before Hurricane Sandy caused so much destruction in their area. I am grateful she and her family are safe, but know that so many others are ravaged from the brutal storm. Winds didn’t just blow away the beautiful leaves, whole trees were uprooted.
Swirling in the mix of my concern and prayers, I have thought how glad I am that Jen saw the beauty of those leaves and shared the images with me. In reality, I have lived a good deal of my life where the autumn colors were little changed, or at most subtle – South Texas, Southern California, Indonesia. For twenty years now, at home here on the South Texas Gulf Coast, I need to look more closely at the gifts of Autumn. I love the yellow leaves that swirl from Chinaberry and Elms, the little vermillion flags waving from Hawthorne and Crepe Myrtle. But most of all, I treasure the leaves that fall from my Magnolia tree, bronzed and gilded on one side that is lacquered shiny, and soft sueded brown on the underside. Magnolia leaves were my playthings when I was a child. A bank of Magnolia leaves graced our wedding. I stood in front of a Magnolia tree in Bogor on the island of Java. As I walk in these days leading to my turning 72, the turning of these magnificent leaves is with me again. I am thankful.
How Filled With Awe
Days pass and the years vanish and we walk sightless among miracles. Oh, Holy One, fill our eyes with seeing and our minds with knowing. Let there be moments when your Presence, like lightning, illumines the darkness in which we walk. Help us to see, wherever we gaze, that the bush burns, unconsumed. and we, clay touched by Thee, will reach out for holiness and exclaim in wonder, “How filled with awe is this place and we did not know it.” ~ Rachel Naomi Remen, quoting a prayer from the Jewish Prayer Book, Gates of Prayer
Pay attention Be astonished Tell about it ~Mary Oliver
Small children often have a practice at school called show and tell. That seems to be kin to Mary Oliver’s words. First you have to notice, to really see before you can choose something to show or have its description to tell about. I grow a great many herbs in my garden. Each has unique characteristics of growth and appearance and fragrance. Part of the joy of tending this garden is in seeing and knowing the differences.
This Cuban Oregano is one of my favorites for its beauty – softly variegated colors on aromatic velvet leaves that I love to touch. I like the way it leans into our weathered wood fence as if to press its restoring oil into the splintered plank. When I water the plants around it, I look for it, I pay it attention. I am rewarded with fresh amazement at the loveliness of growing things, surviving the heat of summer and thriving.
“Seeing is of course very much a matter of verbalization. Unless I call my attention to what passes before my eyes, I simply won’t see it. It is, as Ruskin says, ‘not merely unnoticed, but in the full, clear sense of the word, unseen.’ I have to say the words, describe what I’m seeing…But if I want to notice the lesser cataclysms of valley life, I have to maintain in my head a running description of the present.” ~ Annie Dillard, from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
A book which is now considered a classic children’s book of the twentieth century, Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett was published as a novel in 1911. Its story, full of loss and gain, tragedy and triumph develops as children and a garden grow and change. There have been a number of productions produced for movies and television which bear the name and tell the story. But the movie version created in 1949 is the one which lives in my memory. I was 9 years old, and not allowed to see many films. The scene which so impressed me was one of sudden change. Almost the entire film is in stark black and white. The scene in which the door to the garden is opened to reveal the beauty of the garden in vivid Technicolor created a breathtaking moment. Little girls weren’t the only ones to gasp.
It is only these many years later that I am understanding that I was far more than entertained by this. In this story, it is only as Mary begins to think of others rather than herself that she became more than a spectator of the garden. As her perception as well as her vision changed, the garden became more beautiful.
This photo is a sign in our garden that has become intertwined in a yellow climbing rose. It reminds me of that other Mary, and of the miracles created when I see beyond myself.
“And the secret garden bloomed and bloomed and every morning revealed new miracles.” ― Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden
Stones and Feathers 