Everybody needs beauty as well as bread,
places to play in and pray in,
where nature may heal and give strength
to body and soul.
~John Muir

Many literary researchers believe that Margaret Wolfe Hungerford, who wrote prolifically under the pen name “The Duchess,” was the first to assert that  “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”  Since then the truth in her assertion has been universally accepted because beauty is, and has always been, highly subjective.  Eye-appeal not only comes from a variety of sources, but it also means different things to each heir of its gift.  Regardless of what our perception of beauty is, however, I believe the profit gained by an individual’s spirit is the same as what his or her body gains from water, vitality and renewal.  Even the smallest measure of comeliness is one of the very best and most uplifting joys in life; it is like a blinking sign that says “look and listen–you are glimpsing the great goodness in the sacred heart of God.”  Its life-giving spark is a powerfully restorative tidbit in a random moment that blesses the beholder, a magical moment that creates a kind of vacuum, a space not unlike what is found in the eye of a storm where peace and rest reign.  And in beauty’s stilled-for-the-moment haven hunger in the gut is squelched and the soul is fed with holy benedictions.

One thing I ask of the LORD, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to seek Him in His temple.  ~Psalm 27:4

A commonplace life, we say and we sigh;

But why should we sigh as we say?

The commonplace sun in the commonplace sky

Makes up the commonplace day.

The moon and the stars are commonplace things,

The flower that blooms and the bird that sings;

But sad were the world, and dark were our lot,

If flowers failed to bloom and the sun shone not.

-Sarah Chauncey Woolsey

Although ordinary and commonplace yellow and orange beauties in the garden often bring me to a halt in treks around the yard.  How could they not?  There’s golden glory to behold in a daffodil which trumpets the coming growing seasons followed by, among other things, the splendid native daylily which heralds summer as she “boldly struts her brief hour upon life’s stage.”  Pansies and daisies are also quite commonplace, and yet in their typicality there is enough of the spectacular to declare them a worthy representative of God’s majesty in bloom.  In addition to the orange and lemony flowers are butterflies like the Gulf Fritillary and the Monarch, stunning “beasties” whenever and wherever their remarkable orange wings flutter.

Splendor and majesty are before Him; strength and joy are in His dwelling place.  ~1 Chronicles 16:27

God’s poet is silence! His song is unspoken,
And yet so profound, so loud, and so far,
It fills you, it thrills you with measures unbroken,
And as soft, and as fair, and as far as a star.
~Joaquin Miller

When a pandemic of blues and purples appear in the garden, the sound of their secret silence is almost deafening.  So sweet are their melodies that not only do they whisper “velvet seductions” to the bees, but they murmur too thunderous truths of holy words, holy hands, holy love, and holy intent to listening human ears.  How fortuitous then are the lilting, purple and blue incantations of earth’s beauty!

When the deep purple falls over sleepy garden walls

And the stars begin to twinkle in the sky–

In the mist of a memory you wander back to me

Breathing my name with a sigh. . .

~Excerpt from lyrics by Mitchell Parish

Creation is, as J. Philip Newell pens, “where the truth of God is hidden, like a treasure buried in a field,” and so for many purple is said to nurture the soul of the believer.  Over the centuries purple has also been a color used to depict nobility, passion, pain, creativity, magic, and mystery.  As amazing as it is, purple does not, however, surpass the color blue in beauty nor is it as much a constant in our lives.  Blue is always with us because it is the color of sea and sky.  Even the nighttime sky turns to indigo before it completely blackens.  For some, the deep blue of the night sky “symbolizes a mystical borderland of wisdom,” and indigo has a way of taking blue from the external world and pushing its influence inward where it increases depth of thought and brings profound insights.  In the garden some blues are soothing colors that invoke rest and are capable of causing the human body to produce chemicals which calm it.  On the other hand brilliant or electric blues are so dramatic and dynamic that they are often invigorating and exhilarating.  Regardless of what shade of blue blesses the eye, John Ruskin hit the nail on the head when he called blue the color “everlastingly appointed by the Deity to be a source of delight.”

Where can I go from your Spirit?  Where can I flee from your presence?  If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.  If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.  ~Psalm 139:7-10

“O the green things growing, the green things growing,
The faint sweet smell of the green things growing!
I should like to live, whether I smile or grieve,
Just to watch the happy life of my green things growing.”
~Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. ~Romans 12:12   ✝

White. . .is not a mere absence of colour;

it is a shining and affirmative thing,

as fierce as red, as definite as black. . .

God paints in many colours; but He never paints so gorgeously,

I had almost said so gaudily, as when He paints in white.

~G.  K. Chesterton

Mother nature’s portrait of life on planet earth begins each spring with brushstrokes of vibrant color that little by little cover over winter’s drab canvas.  Appearing in gardens along with the vibrancy of bright colors is the “shining and affirmative” whiteness of which Chesterton spoke.  White, often chosen as the color of wedding gowns and christening gowns, has perennially spoken of fresh beginnings, and so I think it is fitting that many of the Lord’s flowers appear in shades of white.  In some riots of white the posies are marked with smidgens of contrasting colors which seem in early spring to foreshadow the glorious pigments yet to be dragged off the Master’s palette.  So notable and stunning are the images depicted on earth’s canvases that down through the ages many references to gardens and white have been made in prose as well as music, art, and poetry.  One line in particular was penned by Walter Bellingrath who rightfully noted that a garden “is like a beautiful woman with a different gown for each week of the year.”  And I think that when dressed in gowns of glistening white, these ladies of the garden are especially powerful and inspiring muses.

Go, eat your food with gladness, and drink your wine with a joyful heart, for it is now that God favors what you do.  Always be clothed in white, and always anoint your head with oil.  ~Ecclesiastes 9:7-8

It was not that the jagged precipices were lofty,

that the encircling woods were the dimmest shade,

or that the waters were profoundly deep;

but that over all, rocks, wood, and water brooded the spirit of repose,

and the silent energy of nature stirred the soul to its inmost depths.

~Thomas Cole

Sometimes one just has to go “where the wild things are” in order to have the senses put in order and life put in perspective.  Such a place exists for me in southwestern Oklahoma’s Wichita Mountains.  These mountains began forming approximately 500 million years ago and are ranked among the oldest ranges on earth.  However, down through the ages climactic forces have chiseled and sculpted them until “all that remain now of once lofty escarpments are weather-reduced knobs and domes.”  Even so one can’t help but stand in awe of what remains as well as the forces it took to thrust, in some cases, amazingly huge pieces of granite upward from the bowels of earth.  In addition, amid the beauty of those remaining “knobs and domes” are 13 artificial lakes and a 59,020 acre refuge which “hosts a rare piece of the past–a remnant mixed-grass prairie that escaped destruction because the rocks underfoot defeated the plow.”  The “refuge provides habitat for large native grazing animals such as American bison, Rocky Mountain elk, and white-tailed deer who were all once in danger of extinction.  Texas longhorn cattle also share the Refuge rangelands as a cultural and historical legacy species.  In addition more than 50 mammal, 240 bird, 64 reptile and amphibian, 36 fish, and 806 plant species thrive on the refuge.”  So it is that in this piece of Creation, relatively untamed since the beginning of time, I find more than enough wildness to hear the voice of God murmuring among the profusion of rocks, speaking softly over the flowing waters, and whispering across the waving prairie grasses.

Ascribe to the LORD the glory due His name; worship the LORD in the splendor of His holiness.  -Psalm 29:2

The Lord gives strength to His people;

The Lord blesses His people with peace.

~Psalm 29:11

The “Passion” in “passion flower” refers to the passion of Jesus in Christian theology. In the 15th and 16th centuries, Spanish Christian missionaries adopted the unique physical structures of this plant, particularly the numbers of its various flower parts, as symbols of the last days of Jesus and especially his crucifixion. So it is that I offer up this passionflower from my yard to the risen Christ and ask that He draw near all those suffering losses as a result of the recent devastating tornados. I lift up also all the responders who give of themselves and their skills to help these victims. May all of these people and their families draw strength from You, Jesus, and may they find comfort and rest in the shelter of Your loving holiness.

Rain!  whose soft architectural hands have power to cut stones,
and chisel to shapes of grandeur the very mountains.
~Henry Ward Beecher

Rain’s “soft architectural hands” were made by Him who made the earth and blessed its inhabitants with life-giving waters. All forms of moisture bring the stuff without which there is no life, the stuff in which life is formed, the stuff of which life is sustained. Wetness was felt on the face of Adam and Eve in the beginning, and now eons later rain continues to move in its seasonal cycles to insure the survival of the planet and humanity. It kisses the earth and then returns to the clouds  to be carried on to other destinations.  Through the millennia it must have been carried on journeys that have taken it all over the world again and again.  Oh how I would love to hear the tales the rain could tell if it had the gift of speech.

The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.  ~Psalm 19:1  ✝

Everything is blooming most recklessly;
if it were voices instead of colors, there would
be an unbelievable shrieking into the heart of the night.
~Rainer Maria Rilke

If our hearing were finely tuned enough, I wonder if we could really hear colorful flowery “voices” shrieking in the night as Rilke suggests.  This photo taken on a spring  day as it wound down is just one of many that testify to that possibility.  Although the light was quickly slipping away, the colors were not going into the night in quiet abdication of their thrones.  If anything, as the warmth and light diminished, some of the glorious hues actually deepened in the cool darkness.  Decades ago after consistently wandering the garden at night, I began noticing that vivid flower colors are still visibly vibrant even though they lack luminosity.  In fact in the deepest hours of night they seem to hold a bit of light within themselves, a phenomena not unlike the perpetual light that shines in the countenance of a human who has allowed Christ to come and dwell in his/her heart.

God waits to win back His own flowers as gifts from man’s hands.  ~Rabindranath Tagore

I do love many things, but it’s flowers and colors that speak to me most and in ways like none other.  Since childhood both of them have fueled my spirit, and now that I’m coming to know the Lord more and more, they encourage me to empty my mind of all that limits God and His divinely inspired possiblilities.  The Irish poet and teacher, John O’Donohue, asks us to “take time to celebrate the quiet miracles that seek no attention, ” and to that end I began planting and celebrating a host of colorful flowers long ago.  Now when I pull back the blinds to let in morning’s light, what I see in the garden almost takes my breath away.  I struggle even to whisper words of gratitude and praise, and for some time afterwards I want nothing more than to stay in Eden and linger in the Lord’s holiness.

Keep the eye of your spirit ever upon the Lord, the window of your soul open towards Him.  You have ever to know that all things are yours–that what is lovely He delights to give you.  ~Anonymous

The LORD is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation. He is my God, and I will praise him, my father’s God, and I will exalt him.  ~Exodus 15:2