Tag Archives: Seed

610. Life is a series of thousands of tiny miracles. ~Mike Greenberg

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Every gardener knows
that under the cloak of winter
lies a miracle–a seed waiting to sprout,
a bulb opening to the light,
a bud straining to unfurl.
And the anticipation nurtures our dream.
~Barbara Winkler

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Miracles! Miracle after miracle after miracle! Where would any of us be without the existence of miracles. Bad things definitely happen on planet earth, but miraculous things also occur on a daily basis. Moreover, many times out of the dust and devastation of catastrophic disasters arise changes for the betterment of life and living conditions as well as uplifting examples of the amazing goodness that exists in the human heart and soul.  Looking for evidence of the miraculous is precisely the reason I’m so in love with the small piece of Eden the Lord granted me. I may have started gardening for the love of flowers and color, but it wasn’t long before I began to find day to day evidence of God’s eternal faithfulness and His supernal miracles. Spending even a small amount of time in my garden repeatedly unveils the Lord’s abiding presence, and I have to wonder if the poet who spoke of “fairies at the bottom of the garden” wasn’t actually “entertaining angels unawares.” In spite of Creation’s brokenness and my own heart’s sufferings, miraculous wellsprings of life and hope open up whenever I spend time outside, either as the gardener in residence or simply as the mindful beholder. And time spent within my garden “walls” also teaches me how to respond to life and its sometimes terrifying circumstances with a spirit of peace and love. Holy Writ tells us that understanding is not promised unto us, but peace that transcends understanding is granted to those who seek the Prince of Peace and search for the true heart of life. Thus even in the dead of winter, I often go out, even if I have to hobble around on a cane, to putter in the flowerbeds or stroll along the garden’s paths in search of its sustaining “holy food.”

May the lights of the heavens, the delights of the earth, the flowing of life-giving waters, the warmth of the sun, the wind, that like Yahweh, can be felt but not seen forever bring you peace and an awareness of the miracles all around us as well.

He performs wonders that cannot be fathomed, miracles that cannot be counted. ~Job 9:10  Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. ~Hebrews 13:2   ✝

**Image via Pinterest

574. No child but must remember laying his head in the grass, staring into the infinitesimal forest and seeing it grow populous with fairy armies. ~Robert Louis Stevenson

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Faeries, come take me out of this dull world,
For I would ride with you upon the wind,
Run on the top of the dishevelled tide,
And dance upon the mountains like a flame.
~William Butler Yeats

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The Song of the Acorn Fairy


To English Folk the mighty oak
Is England’s noblest tree;
Its hard-grained wood is strong and good
As English hearts can be.
And would you know how oak-trees grow,
The secret may be told:
You do not need to plant for seed
One acorn in the mould;
For even so, long years ago,
Were born the oaks of old.
~Cicely Mary Barker

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Fairies are invisible and inaudible like angels, but their magic sparkles in nature. ~Lynn Holland

In speaking of the angels he says, “He makes his angels spirits, and his servants flames of fire. ~Hebrews 1:7    ✝

** Images via Pinterest

573. Listen to the trees as they sway in the wind. Their leaves are telling secrets. ~Vera Nazarian

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All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
~J.R.R. Tolkien

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Deep in the ground
Far beneath my feet

My mother’s lifetime ago
A seed, a root, a tree began to grow.

Buried in the soil
It once lay alone,

Till the seeds, the root, the tree began to show.
Deep in the ground

Far beneath my feet.
A root became a tree.

~Caitlynn Rose

Every tree in the forest has a story to tell. ~Israelmore Ayivor

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Life rises in the roots, and leaves. ~John Piller

It was majestic in beauty, with its spreading boughs, for its roots went down to abundant waters. ~Ezekiel 31:7   ✝

** Images via Pinterest

 

572. The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

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When the oak is felled
the whole forest echoes with its fall,
but a hundred acorns are sown
in silence by an unnoticed breeze.
~Thomas Carlyle

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A tiny acorn falls from a towering tree. An even tinier seed drops from a flowering plant. Deciduous trees and shrubs lose their sheltering leaves. Perennials die down to the shivering ground when the first hard freeze comes, and the flourishing grass withers and turns brown. At a glance there is no telling proof of life as the sun and moon pass over barren fields throughout the short, cold days and the long colder nights of late autumn and wintertime. Yet the world doesn’t pass into nothingness. What the Lord spoke into the void remains alive in dark, inner chambers where it lies in wait, waiting patiently with expectancy for moments in time when a spark will activate the memory of what Yahweh spoke, and once again life emerges from sacred, secret places. Then sunlight and rain, filled with the same kind of holiness, nurtures the new growth and urges it on to another round of completion. For in the faithful and ongoing rites of passage in springtime under the multitudinous orbs of heaven, life goes on directed by the ancient and engulfing rhyme and reason of the Maker of Heaven and Earth who is as omnipresent now as He has ever and always been.

So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. ~2 Corinthians 4:18   ✝

**Image via Pinterest

535. The word “miracle” aptly describes a seed. ~Jack Kramer

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When I see that first, minuscule, curled pale green wisp of a sprout
poking up between a couple of grains of vermiculite, I hear God speaking.
~June Santon

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Babies, little green babies, miracles of soil and seed are bursting forth from earth’s womb even as winter approaches. And as always I find the potential for life that exists in something as small and seemingly lifeless as a seed mind boggling. Equally astounding is the fact that stored within each tiny seed are enough nutrients to spark life in the seedling that will ultimately grow from the embryo, an embryo which has two points of growth. From one end of a particle sometimes as small as a speck of dust emerges a stem and from the other emerge roots. As if all this is not enough to inspire complete and utter amazement, the process of germination certainly does. Germination is a reactivation of metabolic pathways that depends on the right temperatures, the right amount of oxygen and water, and sometimes the right amount of darkness and light. But wait all this is not really the best part! The most impressive thing is that the entire process of seed to plant to seed, from beginning to end, can and frequently does occur without a human hand ever entering the process.

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Jesus made clear that the Kingdom of God is organic and not organizational. It grows like a seed and it works like leaven: secretly, invisibly, surprisingly, and irresistibly. ~Os Guinness

Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, enthroned between the cherubim, you alone are God over all the kingdoms of earth. You have made heaven and earth. ~Isaiah 37:16   ✝

** Images via Pinterest

511. Let your life lightly dance on the edges of Time like dew on the tip of a leaf. ~Rabindranath Tagore

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Only when you drink from the river of silence
shall you indeed sing. And when you have
reached the mountain top, then you shall climb.
And when the earth shall claim your limbs,
then you shall truly dance.
~Kahlil Gibran

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Where Does the Dance Begin, Where Does It End?

Don’t call this world adorable, or useful, that’s not it.
It’s frisky, and a theater for more than fair winds.
The eyelash of lightning is neither good nor evil.
The struck tree burns like a pillar of gold.

But the blue rain sinks, straight to the white
feet of the trees
whose mouths open.
Doesn’t the wind, turning in circles, invent the dance?
Haven’t the flowers moved, slowly, across Asia, then Europe,
until at last, now, they shine
in your own yard?

Don’t call this world an explanation, or even an education.

When the Sufi poet whirled, was he looking
outward, to the mountains so solidly there
in a white-capped ring,
or was he looking

to the center of everything: the seed, the egg, the idea
that was also there,
beautiful as a thumb
curved and touching the finger, tenderly,
little love-ring,

as he whirled,
oh jug of breath,
in the garden of dust?

~Mary Oliver

May God give you heaven’s dew and earth’s richness… ~Genesis 27:28a   ✝

**Image via Pinterest

491. Every vine climbing and blossoming tells of love and joy. ~Robert G. Ingersoll

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That is faith, cleaving to Christ,
twining around Him
with all the tendrils of our heart,
as the vine does round its support.
~Alexander Maclaren

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Like all else in Creation, vines remind me of the nearness of God perhaps because they reflect the way He wraps His arms around His children and keeps them close to Himself. In that way we go together like a hat and glove as they say for we are to the Lord as the branch is to the vine, as sheep are to the shepherd, as the flower is to the stem, as the bride is to her groom, as the bird is to air, as the fish is to water, as the star is to the sky, as the sun is to the moon, as the plant is to the seed, as the grass is to the dew, and as the babe is to its mother. Simply put, we are inextricably linked to Yahweh, the Maker of heaven and earth, and it is from our loving Source that we gather strength and energy. His supporting and sustaining provisions draw us into His holy web of life and subsequently move us closer and closer to the Light. In the Gospel of John are the “I am” sayings of Jesus which give us wonderful descriptions of the way Christ connects with us:

“I am the bread of life.”
“I am the light of the world.”
“I am the gate for the sheep.”
“I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd gives his life for the sheep.”
“I am the resurrection, and the life.”
“I am the way, the truth, and the life.”
“I am the true vine.”

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Return to us, O God Almighty! Look down from heaven and see! Watch over this vine, the root your right hand has planted, the son you have raised up for yourself. ~Psalm 80:14-15   ✝

**Three images above Scripture via Pinterest

482. Spring flowers are long since gone. Summer’s bloom hangs limp on every terrace. ~Louise Seymour Jones

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On such a day each road is planned
To lead to some enchanted land;
Each turning meets expectancy.
The signs I read on every hand.
~Eleanor Myers Jewett

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Wait, wait, wait! What did I just hear? I think it was about something coming this way. Shhhhh! Did you hear it? Okay, okay, listen again! There it is! Did you hear it this time? All right, if the voices are yet imperceptible, perhaps the eye can see what the ear cannot hear. Let’s see! Berries are turning orange, red, or purple, spent perennial flowers are being replaced by seed pods, ornamental grasses are sending up pretty seed heads, the spider and oxblood lilies are in bloom, monarch butterflies are reappearing in the garden, the sun is moving southward, days are shortening, and rain paid us a visit last Saturday. Now do you know what I’m hearing? Well, if not, I’ll be happy to tell you what nature’s voices are saying! “Signs on every hand” are declaring that the heat beast is dying and that autumn is, slowly but surely, coming this way!

Lord it is time.
The summer was very big.
Lay thy shadow on the sundials,
and on the meadows
let the winds go loose.
~Ranier Maria Rilke

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What a feast for the senses autumn is! Before long dying leaves will be filled with stunning colors and golden light so that their last days will thrill the eye. When the brightly colored foliage begins to fall from its branches, the leaves will swirl about like colorful party confetti in chilly autumnal winds. After they litter the ground, the crunch under our feet will charm the ear, and bright orange pumpkins prepared in scrumptious fare will gladden the taste buds. And if that’s not enough, there are migrating birds and butterflies, sparkling patches of frost on the ground, and clouds bearing blessed rain that will also add to autumn’s thrilling drama. Oh come sweet autumn, come!

He (God) makes clouds rise from the ends of the earth; he sends lightning with the rain and brings out the wind from his storehouses. ~Psalm 135:7 ✝

469. The ripest peach is highest on the tree. ~James Whitcomb Riley

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This is the blessing for a ripe peach:
This is luck made round. Frost can nip
the blossom, kill the bee. It can drop,
a hard green useless nut. Brown fungus,
the burrowing worm that coils in rot can
blemish it and wind crush it on the ground.
Yet this peach fills my mouth with juicy sun.
~A verse from a poem by Marge Piercy

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Abracadrabra! Hinkety, pinkety! Jiggity, jog! Poof! Oh wouldn’t it be lovely if with such a simple incantation we could go back in time to a place where one of our life’s greatest treasures lie! For me it would be a place filled with the sights and sounds of the sea, the fragrances of beautiful flowers, the tastes of luscious fruits, and the magic of innocence. That place would always be my childhood home in southern California where sanctity fell from on high and oozed up from the ground, and the air was charged and ripe with God’s goodness.

It was when I read this verse today that the poet’s words actually took me back for the briefest of moments to that time and place. For you see in our backyard we had a large peach tree, and I remember so well reaching up, grabbing one, though it might not have been the highest, and eating it with joyful abandon, letting the “juicy sun” drip right down from my mouth. And then there were my mama’s peach pies!!! My oh my oh my but they were the best I have ever eaten!

The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. ~Genesis 1:12   ✝

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. With all Creation I sing: Praise to the King of Kings. You are my everything, and I will adore you!” (From Revelation Song by Phillips, Craig, and Dean)

449. With an eye made quiet by the power of harmony and the deep power of joy, we see into the life of things. ~William Wordsworth

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Bright flowers, whose home is everywhere
Bold in maternal nature’s care
And all the long year through the heir
Of joy and sorrow,
Methinks that there abides in thee
Some concord with humanity,
Given to no other flower I see
The forest through.
~From his poem “To the Daisy”
by William Wordsworth

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Daisies, these in the photos are not, but members of the same family they are. And I believe the sunflower and the two Echinacea blossoms on either side are as deserving of Wordsworth’s poetic description as the daisy since all are equally bold, bright, and beautiful. The best part is that none of them need much tending and can be grown with very little effort in a wide variety of soils. And methinks too that there abides in all three “some concord(harmony) with humanity” because they bring the “deep power of joy” to the eye and not only reflect God’s glory but also fulfill a portion of His promises. Another great feature of the beauties is that these members of a 40 million-year-old family readily reseed themselves. That means that a gardener or farmer can start with a single plant and at the end of a growing season harvest more than enough seeds to share with other growers or to start a plethora of new plants in his/her own garden. The English writer, John Mason Good, said it best of such flowers, “Not worlds on worlds, in phalanx deep, need we to prove a God is here. The daisy, fresh from nature’s sleep, tells of His hand in lines as clear.”

Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb that yields seed, and the fruit tree that yields fruit according to its kind, whose seed is in itself, on the earth”; and it was so. And the earth brought forth grass, the herb that yields seed according to its kind, and the tree that yields fruit, whose seed is in itself according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. ~Genesis 1:11-12    ✝

Sweet Jesus, fill us with the mercy you bled on the cross and draw us back unto Yourself! Help us to be aware of You in all that we see and hear in Creation!