Meditate on it

Laura Lin,  https://www.etsy.com/shop/PaintedVerses/ This scripture on worry has always been a favorite of mine. I'm referencing it at length because the entire passage deserves consideration: "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Isn't there more to life than food and more to the body than clothing?   Look at the birds in the sky: They do not sow, or reap, or gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Aren't you more valuable than they are?   And which of you by worrying can add even one hour to his life?   Why do you worry about clothing? Think about how the flowers of the field grow; they do not work or spin.   Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his glory was clothed like one of these!   And if this is how God clothes the wild grass, which is here today and tomorrow is tossed into the fire to heat the oven, won't he clothe yo

"Now the LORD God appointed a plant and made it come up over Jonah, that it might be a shade over his head, to save him from his discomfort. So Jonah was exceedingly glad because of the plant." -Jonah 4:6 The marching pumpkin vine in the morning fog  (you can see Rose's pumpkin in the distance). I felt silly writing about this pumpkin vine again until I remembered that Jonah the prophet valued a vine too. He was even "exceedingly glad" about it, so that leaves me in solid company. I'm thankful for vines that persist and overcome obstacles because they give me a picture of how to overcome things in my own life--quietly, politely, but persistently.   This humble pumpkin vine emerged from the compost heap,then out-climbed dozens of others, to triumph on the fencetop and produce Rose's gorgeous pet pumpkin. Even then, he's still going, inch-by-inch, bloom-by-bloom, across the fence top.  Despite infestations from squash beetles, leaf af

"Aren't two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them falls to the ground apart from your Father's will.  Even all the hairs on your head are numbered.  So do not be afraid; you are more valuable than many sparrows." -Matthew 10:29-31 Cherry and Ivory Swizzle Zinnia--love the fade. When in despair over greater things, it helps me to grab onto the lesser.  Last Thursday I had a hard smack in the face after a routine colonoscopy.  Actually, it was a procedure I pushed for, as I have a sad family medical history.  At 46, I was expecting a few polyps perhaps, but not a 4cm mass.   In my experience, this is how life goes.  You never know what routine test or routine day may bring.  I keep short tabs and take little for granted. Even in great difficulty, I find His hand constant in the details.  I have a friend who works over at Asheville GI, and even though I didn't see her that day, her presence there and her later

"He told them many things in parables, saying: "Listen! A sower went out to sow..." -Matthew 13:3   I've always liked parables. Who doesn't relish a good story?  As a child, so much of what I was taught at Catholic CCD was hard to grasp, but the parables, they made sense.  House built on sand.  Merchant found a pearl.  A man stopped to help a sick man. Great! Let's color a picture, and then we can all go home.  As an adult, I have an even greater respect for them. Now I appreciate the genius of their design. Like burrs that stick to your socks--long after class is over, you'll find their simple images sleeping in the corners of your mind. They are winsome; they invite you in and then entreat you to find a comfortable place to rest, to stop and think a bit. Where would I build my house?  Would I sell my field? Would I be too busy to stop? For me, a favorite among them has always been the Parable of the Sower.  Great imagery--A sower had a fi

“... the Latin name for man, homo, derived from humus,                                                                                                       the stuff of life in the soil.”  -Dr. Daniel Hillel Soil is a primary ingredient of life. Both Christian evolutionists and creationists agree that man was formed, at least partially, from the soil, from basic elemental substances. I realize that the shore of common ground slopes sharply away from there.  Creationists interpret the Genesis account strictly--man was created by God out of the ground literally, instantaneously: from Organic Gardening " And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." -Genesis 2:7 Christian evolutionists interpret the Genesis account poetically and assert that God used the process of evolution over a long period of time to create man and everything on earth.   Now wait!  Before your he

"Little things seem nothing, but they give peace, like those meadow flowers which individually seem odorless but all together perfume the air."                               -George Bernanos July 3rd--on the fence, look at its thick neck! When I first began gardening years ago, I remember being puzzled by the term volunteer , but I've long since grown to love the term and such plants. A volunteer is a plant that you didn't plant, thus it "volunteers" to grow in your garden.  I suppose it's somewhat like a weed, but a wanted weed.  Some volunteers come from nearby self-sowing plants, others are carried by the wind or by an animal, and some come from compost.  Volunteers are usually hardy stock and sometimes inspirational. If you like Granny Smith apples, you can thank an Australian named Maria Ann Smith and her compost pile! July 5th--sling theory Our most noteworthy volunteer of the 2015 season came from last year's Halloween pump

A lovely, but temporal, hibiscus bloom--reminds me of a sea creature washed up on shore. Our lives are full of variables---like the light I wrote about yesterday, a result of the sun's rotation.  Even beyond our planet, stars and entire galaxies come and go.  Naming only a few here on earth, we have the water cycle, nitrogen cycle, rock cycle, and the ever revolving seasons. Though these cycles keep life interesting, they leave us at the mercy of  shifting sands---all is mutable, changing.  Solomon wrestled with this repeatedly in Ecclesiastes: The sun rises, and the sun goes down, and hastens to the place where it rises. The wind blows to the south and goes around to the north; around and around goes the wind, and on its circuits the wind returns. All streams run to the sea, but the sea is not full; to the place where the streams flow, there they flow again. -Ecclesiastes 1:5-7 I struggle with personal cycles too.  Didn't I just go the store?  Weed that bed? Clean the

Gardens have distinct moods and lighting makes all the difference. The same plants take on different qualities depending upon the weather and the position of the sun in the sky. I suppose they are like people in this regard: changing circumstances bring out various facets of us all--for better or worse. Love the light on Rose's pumpkin here, but the pumpkin is a story for another day. ; ) Easily, my favorite light in the garden is morning light. It whispers. It's gentle. It's polite. (Unlike the boorish glare of the afternoon sun!) The beds in the front of our home face east, and in the high days of summer, the sun overcomes the landscape there gradually. When it does so just right, it's a living changing thing, like watching the clouds roll in over the mountains. Emily Dickinson spoke of a different kind of light, more melancholy: There's a certain Slant of light, Winter Afternoons – That oppresses, like the Heft Of Cathedral Tunes – I know this

What, in ill thoughts again? Men must endure Their going hence even as their coming hither. Ripeness is all. Come on. -King Lear, Act V, Scene ii The storm took my favorite sunflower out last night. So life goes in the garden--easy come, easy go. The upside is that we now have two huge bouquets of the sunflowers gracing our tables.  The downside is the gaping hole in my garden and the disappointment of the finches.  The finches love their sunflower seeds, and once the flowers mature to seed, they are ever present.  That particular sunflower had many branches, so I was especially looking forward to the finches arriving in force. Tilting here--the storm cracked it right in half! I had a friend a few years ago comment on her growing interest in birds:  You know, when I was in my 20's I couldn't care less about the birds.  My parents would watch the birds, and I would think to myself "get a life!" But now that I'm getting older, suddenly, I'm n

Hollyhocks after the rain  I woke to thunder and rain this morning.  My first thought was of the garden: good, it's been dry. I appreciate that about gardening---it pulls me back to the outside cycles. Rain then is more than something that gets me wet.   Or something that I have to drive through carefully. Rain feeds. Rain refreshes. Rain sustains.  It's not merely an inconvenience or the harbinger of an unfortunately dreary day. The ancients, of course, were deeply in tune with the weather, the seasons, the cycles of day and night. I think about that sometimes and wonder if the rampant sleeplessness, depression, anxiety, and stress of our culture would be helped by drawing closer to these cycles. Once upon a time, the cost of candles forced people to go to bed.  Then they woke up early because "daylight is burning."  The cycles kept them in check.  In our culture, we have few natural checks and can become completely divorced from such considerations.  We m