January opens the box of the year
And brings out days that are bright and clear
And brings out days that are cold and grey
And shouts, “Come see what I brought today!”
~Leland B. Jacobs

One of my favorite things to do in January, or for that matter in any month, is to wander the garden to see what’s “popping up” out of its “boxes.”  Winter Jasmine, flowering quince, and lenten rose usually pop out in January, but so far this year they have not answered the call.  Another thing I like to do is keep an eye on what’s happening down at the Botanic Gardens and the local nurseries.  So far not much is happening at the Botanic Gardens either, but I have found that the covered areas of the nurseries are well stocked with cyclamen, pansies, primroses, and lenten roses as well as herbs, fruit trees, and fruit-bearing vines.  Every January I think too about keeping a journal as the year moves along so I’ll remember from one year to the next what’s happening in the garden and when.  But then I already am fairly familiar with the whole year’s timetables because on pleasant days like we’ve had this week, I spend what time my aging body will allow working out in the yard.  Even though things don’t happen on the same exact day every year, unless we have some really strange weather patterns, I’ll bet beginning times don’t vary all that much from year to year anyway.

O God, from your life the fire of the rising sun streams forth.
You are the life-flow of creation’s rivers,
the sap of blood in our veins,
earth’s fecundity, the fruiting of trees, creatures’ birthing,
the conception of new thought, desire’s origin.
All of these are of you, O God, and I am of you.
~J. Philip Newell

Creation has been described as “the grand volume of God’s utterance,” and we are all a part of that utterance.  So when we seek God, we mustn’t look “away from ourselves and away from creation, but deep within all that has life.”  God actually speaks to us through two books: Creation and the Bible because He exists in both contexts.  Simply put His light is inextricably woven through the whole of Creation and its goings on; nothing has life apart from God.  As for myself I often find Him in my garden because my garden like any garden is a microcosm of the grander macrocosm of Creation itself.  In it exists the whole of the mystery of God, and under its tutelage one begins to understand at least some of the mystery that is God.  For me my connection to Him through my garden is as firm and secure as that of an infant to the umbilical cord in its mother’s womb.

I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory.  ~Psalm 63:2