How does the Meadow flower its bloom unfold?
Because the lovely little flower is free
down to its root, and in that freedom bold.
~William Wordsworth
Today is your day to
paint life in bold colors,
set today’s rhythm with
your heart-drum,
walk today’s march
with courage.
Create today as your
celebration of life.
~Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Let us therefore come boldly unto God’s throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need. ~Hebrews 4:16 ✝
I held a moment in my hand,
brilliant as a star,
fragile as a flower,
a tiny sliver of one hour.
I dripped it carelessly.
Ah! I didn’t know,
I held opportunity.
~Hazel Lee
There’s a whisper
inside of you…
It’s saying it’s time to
kick it up a notch.
To love more.
To create more.
To forgive more.
To be more of all that
you are and of all that
you can be.
You hear it, don’t you?
~Nick Ortner
And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works… ~Hebrews 10:24 ✝
Where you have a plot of land,
however small, plant a garden.
Staying close to the soil is good for the soul.
~Spencer W. Kimball
On a lesser scale what John O’Donohue said of the farmer that was quoted in my last post could also be said of a gardener. It may not have been fields that I chose to cut and create, but the labor to put flower beds around this piece of land was equally tough and punishing. The soil here is heavy clay laid over bedrock that in some places is a foot or less below the surface. That and the fact that bamboo and its extremely hard to dig up rhizomes were consuming the back of the lot may have been the reason only a few trees, the grass, and one small flower bed were here when we bought the place. Whatever the reason for the lack of little else I had to do a lot of digging, cutting, uprooting, and amending the soil to create the many “clearances” where I now plant and sow. And like the farmer’s fields, each bed has become a presence in my life, a unique and sacred presence that has not only tempered my heart and greened my thought but has also brought me back into the Lord’s keeping. The earth and its wildlife indeed seem now to trust the intention of my hands, and what has happened over the years in my “fields” has changed my heart and spirit for both had grown cold and hard and dark from living so long away from earth’s engaging and compelling ways.
There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot. . . ~Ecclesiastes 3:1-2 ✝
Thank you, Lord Jesus, that you save, you heal, you restore, and you reveal Your Father’s heart to us! You have captured me with grace and I’m caught in Your infinite embrace! Like Saint Hildegard Lord, may I too be a feather on your holy breath and spread, like seeds, the gospel abroad.
What was any art but a mould
in which to imprison for a moment
the shining elusive element
which is life itself.
~Willa Cather
The foliate head and the Green Man are sculptures or drawings in which almost always a man’s face is surrounded by or made from leaves; it is a face that merges nature with humanity.
The Green Man is “a mythic figure that appears in art and legend throughout the centuries and independently in diverse cultures.” Purportedly the images of these leafy men represent life irrepressible.
Countless numbers of the leafy faces can be seen on medieval castles, abbeys, and churches. In fact it was the Europeans who are said to have spread the Green Man’s image and lore to the parts of the world they colonized.
For some the Green Man’s image symbolized the triumph of green life over death and winter. Others considered him the protector of nature; parallels have even been drawn between the Green Man and Jesus Christ.
I see the foliate face as a mould, as Cather suggests, in which can be seen the artistic quintessence of vegetative and human life. And as Disraeli proposes, it is the novelty of its beauty, unconventional as it may be, that is most appealing. On days when I can’t or don’t get out into my garden, I see my semi-human, foliate-faced “friend” on the ground at the end of the stone path out my back door. He is a reminder of the strong connection I feel to the natural world and God, its holy Maker. His eyes seem to peer longingly from behind his verdant leafiness in the same way I perceive that the Lord peers down at the world wanting to know, protect, and love His children. His countenance evokes thoughts of man’s need to create as the made-in-the-image-heir of a creative God, of man’s desire to feel connected to the whole of Creation, and of man’s hope that new seasons will arise again and again as promised. The man in the stone may seem to be locked in perpetual silence, but he speaks to me and I often talk to him.
…the Lord make His face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up His countenance upon you, and give you peace. ~Numbers 6:25-26 ✝
Sacred Touches 