We had our first frost the night before last, so yesterday we woke to a frost covered yard. The rest of the day was clear and sunny, so mid-afternoon I wandered over to the prairie plantings on campus to see how things were doing. There is quite a mix of flowers gone to seed and flowers still opening blooms. I was examining some seed heads when two grade school children from a nearby house waded through the plantings to see what I was doing. They were friendly and curious, so we talked about the prairie plants for awhile before the brother headed back to their swing set.
His sister stayed and watched. I was trying to get a photo of a big brown grasshopper, but it kept leaping away. She tried to catch it for me and told me about finding little green grasshoppers in the field earlier. I told her that this one might be one of those -- that they get bigger and browner as they get older. She nodded and thought about the way things change color as they get older. "Like grandmas!" she said, looking at my white hair with a big smile. "Like grandmas," I agreed, though I'm not one yet. Grandmas and grasshoppers and all things grow and change. This past week we slipped from summer into autumn, and the trees are beginning to turn vibrant colors, and the smaller plants are turning brown. Or white, like grandmas. Either way, there is an abundance of seeds, so the cycle of growth and change will continue. To everything .....turn, turn, turn...... There is a season.....turn, turn, turn.... And a time to every purpose, under heaven.
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When Beth and Jesse got married last year, they wanted lots of colorful summer flowers for their decorations. I planted sunflowers, and we knew there would be black-eyed susans, queen anne's lace and other roadside flowers. Several friends allowed us to sow seeds in their gardens in various locations around town, which we figured increased our chances that some would be in bloom when we needed them.
Our plans worked well, and there were bucket-loads of colorful flowers to put in pint jars for table decorations. This included lots of bright zinnias. I had never been very interested in zinnias. They always seemed stiff and rather boring, and I generally have preferred perennials to annuals. But last summer I realized zinnias did a good job of bringing color to the late summer garden, and this year I planted zinnia seeds. And I've discovered that zinnias are not only full of color -- if you take a close look, they are downright zany. Sunday I read the following passage, part of a canticle by Thomas Merton in A Book of Hours, edited by Kathleen Deignan, and it resonated with the fiery light of sunlight flowers I encountered that morning. For, like a grain of fire Smouldering in the heart of every living essence God plants His undivided power-- Buries His thought too vast for worlds In seed and root and blade and flower, Until, in the amazing shadowlights Surcharging the religious silence of the spring Creation finds the pressure of its everlasting secret Too terrible to bear. Then every way we look, lo! rocks and trees Pastures and hills and streams and birds and firmament And our own souls within us flash, and shower us with light, While the wild countryside, unknown, unvisited Bears sheaves of clean, transforming fire. And then, oh then the written image, schooled in sacrifice,
The deep united threeness printed in our deepest being, Shot by the brilliant syllable of such an intuition, turns within, And plants that light far down into the heart of darkness and oblivion And plunges after to discover flame. Book of Hours, p 49 -50. On our way home from the retreat last Sunday, Sandy and i stopped in at the Calendar Garden to check up on the spring flowers and frogs. The Spring sector was in full bloom, with candy tuft in pink and white, iris, and drifts of pinks about to open. And some petite pale purple poppies, with stamen looking like miniscule polliwogs. And then there were the real polliwogs. A lovely word for tadpole, in case you don't recognize it. I just discovered that it comes from Middle English for poll = head, plus wiglen = wiggle. And that's exactly what they do -- those little whiptails wiggle them through the water, though you can't see them in action in this photo of tadpoles and lilly pads. There were several bullfrogs sunning themselves in the pond. At one point I thought I heard a dog barking in the distance, and then realized it was the frogs, sounding like they had laryngitis.
One apparently decided to incorporate the spring flower theme into his personal attire. The ups and downs of spring.... for several days Judy and I watched a robin working on this nest in a tree between the College Church parking lot and the bike path. It didn't strike us as the safest or quietest place to raise a family. Apparently the robin decided the same thing, leaving behind this high quality nest for anyone interested. The ups and downs of April temperatures have kept us busy, covering and uncovering the strawberries and blueberries, but even without any protection, the miniature rose is putting out tiny rosebuds. (I haven't cropped this one as tightly as I might, to give you an idea of the size of the plant -- about six inches). Our backyard is full of exclamation points, thanks to the neighbor's silver maple. It's great fun to watch them whirling their way down, but while we are hopeful that all the blueberry blossoms result in fruit, we are definitely hoping that these seeds are not so prolific. Most of the yard looks like this little patch: The Japanese maple is not nearly so prolific, but there are 3 or 4 little seedlings coming up nearby. Pretty tiny, as you can see by the maple seed, but we're hoping these survive. The trees in Pennsylvania seemed to be a bit behind our early spring, so as we traveled out to Pittsburgh last weekend, we saw hills covered with mostly bare trees, and scattered among the gray, a few trees ablaze with color -- red, yellow, light green. I tend to forget that trees other than dogwoods and redbud also flower. While Beth and Jesse practiced with the choir before church last Sunday, John and I strolled through the park across the street, and I found trees at various stages of flowering and putting out new leaves. Which got me to wondering, "Where does the phrase 'turning over a new leaf' come from? Does it have anything to do with springtime?" Thanks to that font of wisdom, the internet, I discovered that the "leaf" is a page. You might turn over a new leaf in your ledger to start a new account, for example (back before you kept your records in a spreadsheet, of course). This gets expanded to mean "starting over" or "getting a fresh start" in a more general way. Nature may be turning a new leaf, starting yet again into the year's cycle of growth and new life. I'm needing to turn a new leaf in that more metaphorical sense. With the shift in seasons and yardwork, and the shift from Lenten practices to Eastertide, I'm feeling like I haven't found my prayer rhythm yet for this time of year.
I'm not worrying about it too much, remembering a lovely story told about Father Thomas Keating, one of the teachers of centering prayer. He was teaching a group of nuns this way of praying, which involves silently centering yourself on God with the aid of a word that you return to any time you find your thoughts getting hooked into carrying you away from the prayer. One sister came up to him afterwards and said, "Father Keating, I am so bad at this type of prayer. I kept thinking of other things and had to come back to my prayer word a thousand times." Father Keating smiled and told her, "How delightful! A thousand opportunities to return to God!" I'll find the right rhythm for this season too, the right mixture of silent prayer and gardening prayer and photo/blogging prayer for this time of year. All in good time. Blessed are you, O Child of the Dawn, for your light that dapples through creation on leaves that shimmer in the morning sun and in showers of rain that wash the earth. Phillip Newell, part of prayer from Celtic Benediction Spring is bursting out in an exuberance of colors and way ahead of schedule around here. A mixed blessing, with fears that it will all get nipped by an early frost -- but to be enjoyed in the meantime.
In North Carolina, my sister is getting her garden ready for planting. My cousin in Virgina posted photos of her Lenten rose weeks ago. Here in Indiana, I'm beginning to believe that spring is just around the corner.
We celebrated today's sunshine and our daughter's visit by going out to DeFries Calendar Garden this afternoon, and enjoyed glimpsing spring -- green leaves beginning to open on a few eager bushes, Lenten roses, swelling buds, the sweet scent of witch hazel pompons, an exuberance of pussywillow in the greenhouse, and mysterious colorful blooms. The crocus (crocuses? crocoi?) in my south window well are showing color!
And with the mixed news that nature always seems to offer, these are opening, another patch seems to have served as chipmunk food, and the crocus patch in the north-facing herb bed is still covered with snow. And with the mixed news that life always seems to bring, I'm celebrating the safe arrival yesterday of Spencer Bruce to Kathy and Craig Glick Miller, mixed with memories of his sister Ellie's birth and death, and I'm holding our copastor Heidi in prayer, as she begins her week-long round of in-hospital infusion treatments. This prayer from Philip Newell seems to fit well this day: You have been our strength, O God. At the beginning of the day you brought us from darkness into light. At the ending of the day you lead us from busyness into stillness. In earth's cycles and seasons you offer us new life and fresh beginnings. Be our strength this day and the strength of new beginnings in our world. Be our help, O God, and the help of those who cry out in need. |
My approach to contemplative photography --
"Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it." Mary Oliver in "Sometimes" Archives
August 2020
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