275. Adopt the pace of nature; her secret is patience. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

February 10, 2014 by nataliescarberry

This the garden’s magic,
That through the sunny hours
The gardener who tends it,
Himself outgrows his flowers.

He grows by gift of patience,
Since he who sows must know
That only in the Lord’s good time
Does any seedling grow.

He learns from buds unfolding,
From each tight leaf unfurled,
That his own heart, expanding,
Is one with all the world.

He bares his head to sunshine,
His bending back a sign
Of grace, and ev’ry shower becomes
His sacramental wine.

And when at last his labors
Bring forth the very stuff
And substance of all beauty
This is reward enough.
~Marie Nettleton Carroll

Patience, what a difficult thing to master! At least it has been and still is for me at times. But as Emerson and Carroll assert, part of a garden’s magic is the gift of patience. So among other things I am learning that the anticipation of what unfolds from within the bud is almost as sweet as the blossom itself. Emory Austen said, “Some days there won’t be a song in your heart. Sing anyway.” With that in mind I’m gonna be patient this week, be glad my snapdragons are blooming, believe that rain will come, and sing away as I continue to wait for my tulips to unfurl and this decade-long drought to end.

But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. ~Romans 8:25 ✝

270. Nature looks dead in winter because her life is gathered into her heart. ~Hugh Macmillan

February 5, 2014 by nataliescarberry

She (nature) withers the plant down to the root
that she may grow it up again fairer and stronger.
She calls her family together
within her inmost home to prepare them for being
scattered abroad upon the face of the earth.
~Hugh Macmillan

Early morning light steals across straw-colored grass and slowly warms the biting chill of a February dawn. Splinters of sunlight glisten and sparkle as they move over the garden’s frost-laden, bare bones. From my vantage point inside I can make out a lone, reddish leaf, not quite ready to be a memory, clinging tenaciously to a branch in the ornamental cherry tree. It reminds me that a wellspring of life lies dormant below in nature’s “inmost home” where “her life is gathered into her heart.” My attention is diverted next to the dogs I hear barking up and down the alleyway. The feral cats must be on the move in search of food. Then birds begin to show up at the feeders and high above their flutterings I see the first squirrels running the high wires. Soon birdsong breaks morn’s silence, and lights start coming on in the once darkened houses around us. The neighborhood is coming alive and gearing up for the day, but no, not I. Since retirement I’ve been able to linger as long as I like most mornings and from my well-situated chair watch the days and the changing seasons pass over my yard. Nature’s recurrent patterns and rhythms have always comforted me, and it’s delightful to be able to partake of her daily feasts. Though evidence of God’s grace is readily apparent in the spectacular moments of life, perhaps sweeter are the ones ferreted out of day to day, ordinary living. These are blessings that are not unlike the contrast of a mass of diamonds scattered out on a dark piece of velvet in which all are lovely but none seems particularly more special than the other and that of a singular diamond’s loveliness on the same piece of fabric which in its aloneness is brilliantly stunning.

For the word of the Lord is right and true; He is faithful in all He does. ~Psalm 33:4 ✝

269. Will not a tiny speck very close to our vision blot out the glory of the world and leave only a margin by which we see the blot. ~George Eliot

February 4, 2014 by nataliescarberry

You shall see them
on a beautiful quarto page,
where a neat rivulet of text shall meander
through a meadow of margin.
~Excerpt from “School for Scandal” by
Richard Brinsley Sheridan

Margins–our lives are lived within all kinds of marginal edges. In botany and entomology scientists talk of margins when they cite data about borders around leaves or the borders of insect wings. The earth itself has what I think of as margins. For example, phenomena like mountains, rivers, forests, or oceans hold things within or without; walled constructs built by the sea are held by nature and man. Even our written documents and texts are kept inside a border of blank space called a margin. In literary works poets and novelists speak of garden walls as the margins around growing spaces. The margins around my backyard gardening spaces as well as the ones in public gardens I visit are fences. Interestingly, at one time the margins around my yard were solely the fence lines, but now it is contained within its confines in places by an assortment of trees, some planted by human hands, others that sprang up by their own devices.

In the scriptural passage below God is telling the people of Jerusalem that although they are in a city without walls, He will protect them by being the barrier between them and their enemies. The Lord does that for His children even when they misuse the reins of free will to wander poorly chosen worldly paths. Fortunately for us we never get so far down those potentially dangerous paths that we are out from under the spread of Yahweh’s mighty wings of grace. When asked, He will pull us into a walled sanctuary where His forgiveness is an ever-standing offer for contrite hearts. And as a fellow blogger noted, He walls our hearts with His love.

“And I myself will be a wall of fire around it,” declares the Lord, “and I will be its glory within. ~Zechariah 2:5 ✝

256. The best place to seek God is in a garden. You can dig for Him there. ~George Bernard Shaw

January 22, 2014 by nataliescarberry

Flower in the crannied wall,
I pluck you out of the crannies.
I hold you here root and all, in my hand flower–
but if I could understand what you are
root and all, and all in all,
I should know what God and man is!
~Alfred Lord Tennyson

Whenever I read Tennyson’s poem or see a garden wall I think of Burnett’s novel, THE SECRET GARDEN, and then I find myself trying to imagine what Tennyson’s crannied wall and the garden walls at Misselthwaite Manor looked like. I’ve read that walled growing spaces date back to the earliest of Persian gardens and that their function, especially in the northern temperate zones, was to shelter a garden from frost and wind. Since purportedly the sheltering walls raised the ambient temperature inside a garden by several degrees, I’m guessing they were made of heavy stones. Although the garden walls in Tennyson’s poem and Hodgson’s novel no doubt were constructed similarly and to serve the same purpose, the practicality of such, is not the point of the two tales. The two literary pieces have to do with the impact of encountering the Ancient of Days or the contemplation of His mystery that often takes place within a garden’s walls. Every garden in a very real sense is a piece of Eden, and in Eden man inevitably encountered Him by whose Hands both he and it were made. As Tennyson grasped the entirety of a little flower in his hand, he voiced a firm belief that comprehending its mystery would lead to an unraveling of the ultimate conundrum, man and God. And in THE SECRET GARDEN the lives of two children were resurrected and subsequently infused with that same mysterious “stuff of life” after holy “place” and “elemental” grace had had their way with them.

And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east; that there he put man whom he had formed…They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze… ~Genesis 2:8 and Genesis 3:8a ✝

242. For last year’s words belong to last year’s language. And next year’s words await another voice and to make an end is to make a new beginning. ~T. S. Eliot

January 8, 2014 by nataliescarberry

In my garden there is a large place for sentiment.
My garden of flowers is also my garden of thoughts and dreams.
The thoughts grow as freely and the flowers,
and the dreams are as beautiful.
~Abram L. Urban

One of the fascinating things about a garden is that it’s never quite the same from year to year even if nothing is lost or nothing new is planted. Depending on the variable nature of the weather and the seasons, there is always a difference from one year to the next in the way things grow and perform. Since a garden is a living, breathing entity, it is always in a state of flux, a continuous inconstancy of gain and loss, rise and fall. For example one never knows how many seeds will germinate and flourish or when they or something established will perish for one inexplicable reason or another. So, like people, a garden awaits another “voice” each year, and every ending in it and us yields a new and somewhat different beginning. Whatever was said and done last year is just that for both nature and humanity, and I’ve found it best to leave what was said and done in the past where it belongs. Neither do I spend time thinking about new year’s resolutions because I know that the seasons in my life are always different and therefore evoke different feelings within me and different responses from me.

Time and time again life rises from death, and when it does, one can feel the beating heart of heaven and hear the hushed voice of grace–that unchanging holy voice of grace, that sacred in-and-out breath of life, the Presence that captures me again and again and again. For me that is the only constancy, and I simply cannot live without it or the Ancient of Days by whose grace I live.

“The sounds, the aromas, the speech of life that infiltrates and seduces in heard and unheard melodies echoing from every life form to cocoon, to feed us, to excite us, to give solace, to renew, to cry in joy and sorrow, to create, to birth, to laugh at the sheer exuberance of feeling, I love.” ~Patricia at: http://theenglishprofessor.net/qualifications.php

Obey the Lord and serve Him faithfully with all your heart; consider all the great things He has done for you. ~1 Samuel 12:24 ✝

221. Breath of heaven, lighten my darkness, pour over me your holiness. for you are holy. ~Amy Grant

December 19, 2013 by nataliescarberry

Loving God, help us remember the birth of Jesus,
that we may share in the song of the angels,
the gladness of the shepherds,
and worship of the wise men.

Close the door of hate
and open the door of love all over the world.
Let kindness come with every gift and good desires with every greeting.
Deliver us from evil by the blessing which Christ brings,
and teach us to be merry with clear hearts.

May the Christmas morning make us happy to be thy children,
and Christmas evening bring us to our beds with grateful thoughts,
forgiving and forgiven, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.

~Robert Louis Stevenson, Scottish novelist and poet

He has no car, no address, no phone number. He has no money in his pocket; he doesn’t know from where his next meal will come; and more than likely he knows not where he’ll lay his head to sleep tonight or any other night for that matter.

I know not his name nor where he’s from nor where he is now. Neither do I have any idea what trials lead this man in the photo to the harsh realities of the streets where he currently exists, but I do know in whose image he is made and to whom he belongs. And I know that if there is to be any kind of joy in his world or peace in our silent nights, it will happen only with help from those of us who are part of Christ’s body.

In the Father’s eyes this man’s worth is no less than that of any other man, and the story that’s in his eyes is deserving of compassionate ears. So I pause tonight to pray for this man and those like him. I pray that all of them find food and shelter as well as a good measure of comfort and peace. And for my family and you who are reading this, I pray that you all have a most blessed Christmas and a very happy New Year. “O, come let us adore Him” for He came to save us all.

Grant me the grace of inner sight this day
that I may see you as the Self within all selves.
Grant me the grace of love this day
that amidst the pain and disfigurement of life
I may find the treasure that is unlocked by love,
that amidst the pain and disfigurement of my own life
I may know the richness that lies buried in the human soul.
~J. Philip Newell

How priceless is your unfailing love! Both high and low among men find refuge in the shadow of your wings. ~Psalm 36:7 ✝

*The photograph of this homeless man was sent out in an enews bulletin from a local church.

219. That each day I may walk unceasingly on the banks of my water, that my soul may repose on the branches of the trees which I planted, that I may refresh myself under the shadow of my sycamore. ~Egyptian Tomb Inscription, circa 1400 BCE

December 17, 2013 by nataliescarberry

Because they are primeval, because they outlive us,
because they are fixed, trees seem to emanate a sense of permanence.
And though rooted in earth, they seem to touch the sky.
For these reasons it is natural to feel we might learn wisdom from them,
to haunt about them with the idea that if we could only read
their silent riddle rightly we should learn some secret vital
to our real, our lasting and spiritual existence.
~Kim Taplin

Before the sun fell over the edge of the world yesterday, it painted its recently traversed path with reddish-pink and mauve streaks. In between the streaks were smaller golden rays that eventually blended into the pinker bands of light. As these streaks shot up to the sky’s pinnacle, they oozed deliciousness through the open spaces in one of my favorite trees. It’s a sycamore tree directly across the street from our house, and it’s so old that most of its bark has fallen away. When it has, as it has now, lost most of its floppy brown leaves the tree’s strange fruits are more visible as area its long, slender alabaster arms, arms that seem to reach up and caress the heavens’ spacious blue lagoons. Another thing I love about this particular tree is that in winter’s chilling winds its clattering branches seem to whisper prophecies of another spring’s birthing beneath the soil in silent chambers waiting for the prompting of the sun’s warmth on lengthening days and spring rains.

I’m the first one to admit that sometimes I’m hard pressed on difficult days to find reasons to be joyful, but I’m learning to look expectantly as well as long enough to find some measure of God’s glory in the day at hand. When dealing with a run of painful days as I am now, it becomes not only more challenging but also more necessary. The Holy Spirit within is the protector of one’s spiritual flame as well as a guide, and so if one turns inward to look for an appointment of grace, he/she will find what’s needed to press upward and onward. On this day that spark of relief and mercy was found in the beauty of a tree.

This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. ~Psalm 118:24 ✝

213. Hope is the extraordinary spiritual grace that God gives us to control our fears, not to oust them. ~Vincent McNabb

December 11, 2013 by nataliescarberry

Ah! the year is slowly dying,
And the wind in tree-top sighing,
Chant his requiem…
High in the air wild birds are calling,
Nature’s solemn hymn.
~Mary Weston Fordham

With lows in the teens and 20’s, the few things that had been hanging on have now perished along with their joyous songs of life. In their place after last week’s arctic blast more and more strains of “nature’s solemn hymn” can be heard. All is not lost, however. The change of melodies is a part of God’s grand design, and I find strength and hope in watching His plan play out each year. In fact on days when I feel really out of sorts, I’ve learned to go outside and find something to do even if I have to bundle up to accomplish it. It might be nothing more than refilling the bird feeders and making sure all the overwintering wildlife have water, but the time out there steadies my inner compass again. Feeling earth’s heartbeat and subsequently getting in step with its rhythms, also quells any sense of hopelessness brought on by the trials of life and the ongoing reports of a world torn by conflict and chaos. It’s like when I first felt my child move in my womb. I knew the sensation which felt like the wings of a butterfly barely grazing my uterus was the unmistakable touch of something sacred and right stirring inside me. The Lord’s movement in my inner life is much the same. It may be an ever so slight brush against my soul, but I know I’ve been touched by His loving Presence and am being held firmly in the arms of His grace regardless of what transpires with men gone mad.

See, the Sovereign LORD comes with power, and his arm rules for him. See, his reward is with him, and his recompense accompanies him. He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young. ~Isaiah 40:10-11 ✝

212. It is part of the cure to want to be cured. ~Seneca

December 10, 2013 by nataliescarberry

To feel keenly the poetry of a morning’s roses,
one has to just have escaped from the claws
of this vulture which we call sickness of body or heart.
~Adapted excerpt from Henri Frederic Amiel

In order to mend and bridge chasms of painful, isolating realities, I often douse the fires of what breaks my heart in cups of tea or tears that flow during quiet dawns or at night when the wee hours find me awake and alone. After the sipping or crying comes to an end, a numbed stillness often develops. When it does, I become aware in its clarity of the amazing nearness of God. Jesus, whom I’ve been calling, is offering to guide me through portals to places where pools of mercy await. Sometimes the healing waters lie deep within my own being where the Holy Spirit resides in His cloistered sanctuary. At other times they are found in the beautiful colors of autumn, or in the glistening dew on greening grass and flowers in springtime, or in the gentle gestures of another’s compassion, or in softly spoken prayers proffered by kind and endearing voices. Wherever the pool and whoever the beneficial bearer of blessing, one or both sustain me, if I yield, in the returning rhythm of fitness as the Lord’s grace works to render me wholly well.

I’ve discovered that tears have amazing restorative powers for frequently it is when my eyes are blurred with wetness from them that a sense of God’s presence is strongest. For surely in the loss of His own son by the hands of creatures He breathed life into, He shed more tears than we’ll ever know. We all endure difficult and sorrowful moments in our lives. So excruciating is the pain on occasion that it nearly stifles our very breath, but one breath and one step at a time begins the journey out of the depths of despair.

“But I will restore your health and heal your wounds,” declares the Lord… ~Jeremiah 30:17a ✝

**Whittard’s is a tea, coffee, and cocoa shop that we found in London last summer.

209. Bad weather always looks worse through a window. ~Author Unknown

December 7, 2013 by nataliescarberry

Spooky wild and gusty;
swirling dervishes of rattling leaves race by,
fleeing the wildflung deadwood
that cracks and thumps behind.
~Dave Beard

White, the world is still white, very white and very frozen! And the only movements I see out my window this morning are leaves fluttering to the ground and birds coming to the feeders for breakfast and the bird baths for water. Sadly all the birdbaths are so frozen that no matter how hard they peck at the ice, there’s no water beneath it to be had. So after putting in enough chair time to be fully awake, I braved the cold and took them a bowl of water. As I inched along on the frozen ground, I noticed that some of the fallen leaves from the red oak were striking lovely poses wherever they’d fallen. One of them had even lodged itself quite prettily inside a large ceramic pot I’d emptied of its greenhouse-bound contents. Once back inside after my errand of mercy and a few snaps of the camera, I heard on the news that there was a 30% chance of more sleet today and that the temperature would remain well under the freezing mark. It really didn’t feel all that bad while I was out, but it seems we are in for another forced stay-at-home day. I won’t complain though for like the birds I have much for which to be thankful. The birds too have warmth and safety? Indeed they do, for the ones who are cavity nesters, I’ve put in place plenty of birdhouses around the yard and for the others several kinds of evergreens have been planted. If God stewards and provides for me, and he does so well, how can I not in turn steward and provide for all that He has given me?

For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ! ~Romans 5:17 ✝

Sacred Touches

Life is a time of purpose and anointed blossoming…

Tag Archives: Grace