295. Of all God’s gifts to the sighted man, color is the holiest, the most divine… ~John Ruskin

March 3, 2014 by nataliescarberry

In the house of words was a table of colors.
They offered themselves in great fountains,
and each poet took the color he needed:
lemon yellow or sun yellow,
ocean blue or smoke blue,
crimson red, blood red, wine red.
~Eduardo Galeano

What a glorious tangerine and white dream is the daffodil in the photograph, and holiness indeed is written all over it! As God speaks to mankind through the Bible and Creation, we can see that He values color, the intent of which seems, like all else, to be that its hallowed voice draw His children closer to Him. Color appears first in holy writ in the opening pages of Genesis when God fathered the whiteness of light on day 1 of the Creation story. Then on the second day the Lord created expanses to separate water from water, and both the sky and the reflection of the heavens in it are shades of blue. On day 3 He created earth’s green vegetation. Day 4 brought the placement of lights that governed the heavens, and day’s greater light, the sun, is yellow; up close pictures of the sun also show reds and oranges in its make up. Fish and great sea monsters swam the seas and birds took flight on the fifth day, and whales and sharks have been seen as hallmarks of an ancient pagan idol symbolized by the color orange. The sixth day brought the creation of man and animals; the name Adam means red and the blood that courses through the veins of man and beast alike is red. Day 7, the Sabbath, was sanctified by God whose robes and glory are perennially symbolized by white, and later when atoning for man’s sins His son, Jesus, wore a purple robe.

“And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. Genesis 1:30-31 ✝

293. I think that no matter how old or infirm I may become, I will always plant a large garden in the spring. Who can resist the feelings of hope and joy that one gets from participating in nature’s rebirth? ~Edward Giobbi

March 1, 2014 by nataliescarberry

The flowers of late winter and spring
occupy places in our hearts
well out of proportion to their size.
~Gertrude S. Wister

Small for sure on earth’s vast stage are the first flowers of late winter and early spring, but large is their scope. They, like the day’s first sunlight fractures darkness in the physical world, shatter darkness int the spiritual world. And when any light breaks spiritual darkness, joy and hope can be sparked and subsequently release from any imposed bondage the light of God which is at the heart of all He created. Thus I believe it is by Divine intent and for sacred purposes that these flowers occupy places of disproportionate size in the human heart. Humanity lives with dreadful darknesses in this fallen world, and it could be that the Lord purposely built into Creation’s fabric the repetition of such sparks to keep igniting anew the glow of His Light. J. Philip Newell proclaims that the light of God “dapples through the whole of creation.” He declares that it can be seen “within the brilliance of the morning sun and the whiteness of the moon at night and that it issues forth in all that grows from the ground and the life that shines from the eyes of any living creature.” Thus like cracks in a dam weaken the structure so that flood waters at some point may no longer be able to be contained, crack after crack in spiritual darkness eventually lets in more and more of God’s holy light. Hence when the fullness of His Light breaks through into the world and the human heart, there is the potential for amazing floods of grace and healing as well as salvation.

You, O LORD, keep my lamp burning; my God turns my darkness into light. Psalm 18:28 ✝

292. The force of Spring – mysterious, fecund, powerful beyond measure. ~Michael Garofalo

February 27, 2014 by nataliescarberry

Come, fill the cup, and in the fire of Spring
The Winter garment of repentance fling;
The bird of time has but a little way
To fly — and Lo! the bird is on the wing.
~Omar Khayyám

In the rising of the morning sun God speaks to us of grace and new beginnings, and the fertility of the earth is a sign of how life wells up from within, from the dark unknown place of God. ~J. Philip Newell

Come and see what God has done: He is awesome in his deeds among mortals. ~Psalm 65:5 ✝

287. Hope is some extraordinary spiritual grace that God gives us… ~Vincent McNabb

February 22, 2014 by nataliescarberry

Sit by the edge of the dawn / and the sun will rise for you.
Sit by the edge of the night / and the stars will shine for you.
Sit by the edge of the stream / and the nightingale will sing for you.
Sit by the edge of silence / and God will speak to you.
~from an ancient Hindu text

“The semi-colon tells you that there is still some question about the preceding full sentence; something needs to be added…It is almost a greater pleasure to come across a semicolon than a period. The period tells you that that is that; if you didn’t get all the meaning you wanted or expected, you got all the writer intended to parcel our and now you have to move along. But with a semicolon there you get a pleasant little feeling of expectancy there is more to come; read on; it will get clearer.” ~Lewis Thomas, American doctor and essayist

I think of nature’s seasons as junctures followed by divinely positioned, albeit invisible, semi-colons because they impart “a pleasant little feeling of expectancy.” There are always more of them to be had, and it is that expectancy of “more” that keeps me hopeful not only in nature’s seasons but also in the seasons of my life when what I see tries to delude me into thinking things won’t ever change or this is the end. In the passage above from the old Hindu text the use of “slashes” and “ands” could instead have been replaced with semi-colons because there is something more that comes after each of the suggested occasions to sit and wait. In the same way, the fact that gardens keep an unfaltering “punctuation of continuance” right in front of me is one of the reasons I’m so drawn to spend time in them. I need endless expectancy that breeds hopefulness.

And you will have confidence, because there is hope; you will be protected and take your rest in safety. ~Job 11:18 ✝

**Even the two mauve hellebores in the photo look a bit like a semi-colon if one uses his/her imagination.

276. There is no greater sorrow in the world, than eyes unseeing, color everywhere, or ears unhearing, softly wafted notes from nature’s great cathedral of the air. ~Mabel G. Austin

February 11, 2014 by nataliescarberry

What is pink? a rose is pink
By a fountain’s brink.
What is red? a poppy’s red
In its barley bed.
What is blue? the sky is blue
Where the clouds float thro’.
~Christina Rossetti

Well, it’s another gloomy winter’s day hereabouts, but I’m a singin’ away, a singin’ in the rain as a matter of fact. “I’m laughing at the clouds so dark up above, what a glorious feelin’ I’m happy again…” Okay, so it isn’t much rain, but it has rained a bit nevertheless. And what am I a singing? I’m a singin’ the blues. No, no, no, not the sad blues–the happy blues because some of my little, blue grape hyacinths are blooming in the greenhouse, and they like “girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes” are “a few of my favorites things.” I love the color blue and I love some of the expressions using the color blue, expressions like: true blue, out of the blue, bluer than blue, blue on blue, once in a blue moon, something borrowed, something blue, and on and on it goes. I also love some of the ways people describe what the color blue means to them. For example I’ve heard things like: blue is the wonder in my mind; blue is the sound a sunny day makes; blue is the smell of blueberries ripening in the sun; blue is the wind over water; blue is the color of the never-ending sky; blue is the place where song birds fly; blue is a world of sweet mellow joy; blue is the sky that God holds close to His presence; blue was meant for us to see and believe.

Blue is the color of God’s Glory according to some rabbinic sages, and it is a constant in our lives. Not only is it the color of the clear sky and the deep sea, but it’s the color of our planet, Mother Earth, our precious blue pearl in the heavens. God does indeed hold the sky close to His presence, and we were meant to see evidence of Him, our Creator, in its orbs and in “my blue, blue, blue heaven.”

Speak to the Israelites, and tell them to make fringes on the corners of their garments throughout the generations to put a blue cord on the fringe at each corner. ~Numbers 15:38 ✝

262. If God had wanted to be a big secret, He would not have created babbling brooks and whispering pines. ~Robert Brault

January 28, 2014 by nataliescarberry

You, O God, are the beginning of all that is.
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.
~J. Philip Newell

Creation has been described as “the grand volume of God’s utterance,” and isn’t it grand to know that we are a part of that utterance. When we seek God then we should not look “away from ourselves and away from creation, but deep within all that has life” including ourselves. We can and should search for Him in Scripture, but God is found in more than religious moments and environments. Simply put, He speaks to us through two books: Creation and the Bible. Because He exists in all contexts, His light is woven throughout the whole of Creation’s fabric. Whether recognized and acknowledged or not, nothing has life apart from God, and if we want to look for Him, we need to start in places where He yet dwells. I start in my garden because, like all gardens, it is a microcosm of the grander macrocosm of Creation itself, and even in a small piece of Eden is the whole of the mystery of God. In it I see the same ebbing and flowing and rhythms that I see in my life and Creation at large, and I know that I’m as connected to its Source as the infant in a mother’s womb is connected to its life-giving source. One of my friends told me once that when she was in college she would sometimes go lie down in a wheat field and look up at the sky because she knew to go out into Creation was to find Yahweh. She had learned as have I that wherever and whenever we look and listen, we shall find Him, and I pray this is a week where your encounters with the Holy One are many.

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

**In the photograph is some French Lavender that I found blooming in my greenhouse today. Even it speaks of the blue of our planet and the heavens.

261. Miracles are a retelling in small letters of the very same story which is written across the whole world in letters too large for some of us to see. ~C. S. Lewis

January 27, 2014 by nataliescarberry

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

Miracles! Where would any of us be without the existence of miracles? Bad things happen on planet earth, but miraculous things occur on a daily basis too. And many times out of the dust and devastation of catastrophic disasters arise changes for the betterment of life and living conditions as well as the inevitable uplifting examples of an amazing goodness that exist in the human soul. I garden not just because of a love for flowers but more importantly because I find day to day evidence of the mystery and miracles of God and His goodness in the garden’s confines. Spending even the smallest amount of time in my garden brings repeated awarenesses of the Lord’s abiding presence, and that keeps me focused on Him and not on my own smallness or limitations. In spite of Creation’s brokenness and my own heart’s sufferings, I am guided to wellsprings of life and hope amid earth’s unmistakable hallowed workings. Both contentment and enlightenment can be found in the orbs of the heavens, in the green of the earth, in the flowing of its waters, in the warmth of the sun, and in the wind, that like Yahweh, can be felt but not seen. That in turn teaches me how to respond to life and its sometimes terrifying circumstances with a spirit of peace and love instead of anger, confusion, and frustration. 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.

The Mighty One, God, the LORD, speaks and summons the earth from the rising of the sun to the place where it sets. ~Psalm 50:1 ✝

255. Joy is the holy fire that keeps our purpose warm and our intelligence aglow. ~Helen Keller, American author and educator

January 21, 2014 by nataliescarberry

Who is the happiest of men? He who values the merits of others,
and in their pleasure takes joy, even as though t’were his own.
~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, German writer and Politician

One of my fellow bloggers commented today about the beauty in one of my posts and said she needed the joy. It was such a blessing to know that I had spread some joy in the life of another. So tonight I thought I would share some thoughts about joy. And since this week is A.A. Milne’s birthday I decided to use some illustrations from his book to help do that. Milne was the English author who brought so much joy not only to children but also to those of us fortunate enough to have read the Winnie the Pooh stories to our children.

Joy is not in things; it is in us. ~Richard Wagner, German composer

The sun does not shine for a few trees and flowers, but for the wide world’s joy. ~Henry Ward Beecher, Congregational minister

Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy. ~Thich Nhat Hanh, Vietnamese Monk and Writer

He who has never looked on sorrow will never see joy. ~Kahlil Gibran, Lebanese born American philosophical Essayist, Novelist, Poet

Joy is the net of love by which you can catch souls. ~Mother Teresa, Missionary

Joy delights in joy. ~William Shakespeare, English Dramatist, Playwright, Poet

But let all who take refuge in you(God) rejoice; let them ever sing for joy. Spread your protection over them, so that those who love your name may exult you. ~Psalm 5:10-12 ✝

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

January 20, 2014 by nataliescarberry

Is it winter? Is it not?
Is it cold? Is it hot?
The two-headed Janus knows not.

Where I live unseasonable warming trends often occur in January, and when the month keeps its “box” open-ended long enough, some things in the garden are duped into thinking it’s time to get going. If the lie that spring is upon us continues on into February, that month as well is made a partner in the deceiving treachery. Then when the wintry weather falls back into place and worsens, as it nearly always does, the new growth is the innocent victim of the two traitorous libertines. Such is exactly what happened last year when they were finally exposed as the charlatans they were by a mid-February ice storm. After weeks of mild weather, frigid rain descended from a whitish cloud cover blown in on arctic winds. As the temperatures fell from the 70’s and 80’s to well below the freezing mark and everything became encapsulated in tombs of ice, an almost audible death knell sounded. For days the sun was unable to burn a hole in the clouds, and while the storm’s icy bite endured, the birds who over winter in my yard were, if visible at all, seen only in the mornings. When they were present, I’d see them huddled close to their birdhouses or in the bay tree or azaleas near the house, but by afternoon they’d have disappeared completely into the day’s dismal gloom. Neither did I see any of my neighbors nor the squirrels who’d been so busy as of late, and that collective absence of life forms led to a disturbing sense of aloneness that I did not like at all.

Be merciful to me, O God, be merciful to me, for in you my soul takes refuge; in the shadow of your wings I will take refuge, until the destroying storms pass by. Psalm 57:1 ✝

248. I look back with gladness to the day when I found the path to the land of heart’s desire… ~Mrs. George Cran

January 14, 2014 by nataliescarberry

Earth, thou great footstool of our God,
who reigns on high;
thou fruitful source of all our
raiment, life, and food;
our house, our parent, our nurse,
and our teacher.
~Edited and adapted excerpt from Isaac Watts

What’s that whisper in the wind? Do you hear it? Listen, there it is again! Oh, I know. It’s that ancient and seductive call that tempts the gardener to come and play in the dirt? And it doesn’t take much bidding before this one can do naught but hearken to the bewitching pleas.

For days now I’ve heard the “call” because even though winter is still quite young, January has obliged the “voice” by bringing some warmer days. So several days ago I began clearing my flower beds of autumn’s dead, leafy debris, cutting off seed heads to be scattered elsewhere, and pruning weak, leggy growth off shrubs and roses. Working close to the soil let me, as usual, hear earth’s heartbeat, and that sweet sound in turn spread a soothing balm over the spiritual doldrums.

Ironically, however, it occurred to me as I worked today that I was blessing the warmth of the same sun that only a few months ago I’d been cursing for its relentless waves of miserable heat. That brought me face to face afresh with the truth that too much of anything spoils even the very best of things, that there is a purpose, if not understanding, in all things, and that gratitude, when in comfort or lack, is the only appropriate response to a day’s gifts. So, you see, it was more than an ordinary call or faint heartbeat that I’d heard; I’d encountered the Teacher and He, leading me in and out of flesh and spirit, had shown me, again, wisdom growing in the garden’s “soil.”

…and the Lord your God will make you abundantly prosperous in all your undertakings, in the fruit of your body, in the fruit of your livestock, and in the fruit of your soil. ~Deuteronomy 30:9a ✝

Sacred Touches

Life is a time of purpose and anointed blossoming…

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