Category: amazement

The Annual Dogwood Miracle

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dogwood20184

After all, I don’t see why I am always asking
for private, individual, selfish miracles
when every year there are miracles like … dogwood.
~Anne Morrow Lindbergh

foldeddogwood

It began last week. The tree right next to our front porch, having looked dormant for the past six months, started to bud out in subtle pink-petalled blossoms.

Through the winter, there had been nothing remarkable whatsoever about this tree. Now it is a feast for the eyes, almost blinding in its brilliance.

Each year the dogwood startles me awake. From dead to brilliant in a mere two weeks. And not only our tree, but every other pink dogwood within a twenty mile radius has answered the same late April/early May siren call:
bloom!
bloom your heart out!
dazzle every retina in sight!

And it is done simultaneously on every tree, all the same day, without a sound, without an obvious signal, as if an invisible conductor had swooped a baton up and in the downbeat everything turned pink.

Or perhaps the baton is really a wand, shooting out pink stars to paint these otherwise plain and humble trees, so inconspicuous the rest of the year.

Ordinarily I don’t dress up in finery like these trees do.  I prefer inconspicuous earth tones for myself. But I love the celebratory joy of those trees in full blossom and enjoy looking for them in yards and parks and along roadways.

Maybe there is something pink in my closet I can wear. Maybe conspicuously miraculous every once in awhile is exactly what is needed.

Then again, it is best to leave the miracles to the trees…

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If you stand in an orchard
In the middle of Spring
and you don’t make a sound
you can hear pink sing,
a darling, whispery song of a thing.
~Mary O’Neill from Hailstones and Halibut Bones “Pink”

dogwood517
sunsetdogwood
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The Color of an Eggplant

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Every morning, cup of coffee
in hand, I look out at the mountain.
Ordinarily, it’s blue, but today
it’s the color of an eggplant.
And the sky turns
from gray to pale apricot
as the sun rolls up…

I study the cat’s face
and find a trace of white
around each eye, as if
he made himself up today
for a part in the opera.
~Jane Kenyon, from “In Several Colors” from Collected Poems.

If you notice anything
it leads you to notice
more
and more.

And anyway
I was so full of energy.
I was always running around, looking
at this and that.

If I stopped
the pain
was unbearable.

If I stopped and thought, maybe
the world can’t be saved,
the pain
was unbearable.
~Mary Oliver from “The Moths” from Dream Work

I try to look at things in a new way as I wander about my day,
my eyes scanning for how the hidden dusty corners of my life
become illuminated by a penetrating morning sunbeam
when the angle is just right.

The rest of the time, cobwebs, dust bunnies and smudges
remain invisible to me until the searching light finds them.

What was “blue” becomes “eggplant” in the new light.

Trying to clean up a grungy messed-up
upside-down world of pain is hard work.

It means admitting my own laziness,
while falling down on the job again and again,
I must always be willing to get back up.

If I stop acknowledging my own and others’ messiness,
if I refuse to stay on top of the grime,
if I give up the work of salvage and renewal,
I then abandon God’s promise to transform this world.

He’s still here, ready and waiting,
handing me a broom, a duster, and cleaning rags,
so I shall keep at it –
mopping up the messes I can reach,
seeking what tries to stay hidden.

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Embroidered Light

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Lined with light
the twigs are stubby arrows.
A gilded trunk writhes
Upward from the roots,
from the pit of the black tentacles.

In the book of spring
a bare-limbed torso
is the first illustration.

Light teaches the tree
to beget leaves,
to embroider itself all over
with green reality,
until summer becomes
its steady portrait
and birds bring their lifetime
to the boughs.

Then even the corpse
light copies from below
may shimmer, dreaming it feels
the cheeks of blossom.
~May Swenson “April Light”



This world is not defeated by death.

An unprecedented illumination
emerged from the tomb on a bright Sabbath morning
to guarantee that
we struggling people,
we who feel we are no more than bare twigs and stubs,
we who aren’t budging from where we are rooted,
are now begetting green,
ready to burst into blossom,
our glowing cheeks pink with life,
a picture of our future fruitfulness.

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Rummaging Among Clouds

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The fields are snowbound no longer;
There are little blue lakes and flags of tenderest green.
The snow has been caught up into the sky—
So many white clouds—and the blue of the sky is cold.
Now the sun walks in the forest,
He touches the boughs and stems with his golden fingers;
They shiver, and wake from slumber.
Over the barren branches he shakes his yellow curls. …
Yet is the forest full of the sound of tears….
A wind dances over the fields.
Shrill and clear the sound of her waking laughter,
Yet the little blue lakes tremble
And the flags of tenderest green bend and quiver.
~Katherine Mansfield “Very Early Spring”

You might say that clouds have no nationality
Being flags of no country, flaunting their innocent neutrality
Across frontiers, ignorant of boundaries;
But these clouds are clearly foreign, such an exotic clutter
Against the blue cloth of the sky
I want to rummage among them, I want to turn them over
With eager fingers, I want to bargain
For this one or that one, I want to haggle and dicker
Over the prices, and I want to see my clouds wrapped up
In sheets of old newspapers, and give them away
To young girls to pin in their hair
Or tuck them, glossy as gardenias, behind an ear,
Or stretch one out to the length of a lacy shawl
And toss it over a shoulder, or around a waist.
~Constance Urdang “Clouds”

Our farm sits about 9 miles from an international border. The sky and clouds are oblivious to the line drawn by two governments, and don’t bother to stop at the border stations controlling access of humans across that line.

The clouds are free to go where they please, so they do, while we watch. They are both a foreign and domestic cloud of witnesses to our earthbound follies and foolishness.

No passports or IDs, no being pulled into “secondary” for more intensive searches and questioning, no being “turned back” not allowed across, no deportations.

They simply float and glide where the breezes take them, assuming whatever shape, identity or characteristics they wish.

What a beautiful day in the neighborhood if one happens to be a cloud or a cloud of witnesses…

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Where You Go, I Will Go: He Got Up and So Will We

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So what do I believe actually happened that morning on the third day after he died?
…I speak very plainly here…

He got up.  He said, “Don’t be afraid.”

Love is the victor.  Death is not the end.  The end is life.  His life and our lives through him, in him.

Existence has greater depths of beauty, mystery, and benediction than the wildest visionary has ever dared to dream. 

Christ our Lord has risen.
~Frederick Buechner from The Magnificent Defeat

Make no mistake: if He rose at all
it was as His body;
if the cells’ dissolution did not reverse, the molecules
reknit, the amino acids rekindle,
the Church will fall…

It was not as the flowers,
each soft Spring recurrent;
it was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled
eyes of the eleven apostles;
it was as His Flesh: ours.
~John Updike from “Seven Stanzas at Easter”

Our flesh is so weak, so temporary,
as ephemeral as a dew drop on a petal
yet with our earthly vision
it is all we know of ourselves
and it is what we trust knowing
of Him.

He was born as our flesh, from our flesh.
He walked and hungered and thirsted and slept
as our flesh.
He died, His flesh hanging in tatters,
blood spilling freely
breath fading
to nought,
speaking Words
our ears can never forget.

And He rose again
as His flesh like ours
to walk and hunger and thirst alongside us
and here on this hill we meet together,
–flesh of His flesh–
here among us He is risen
–flesh of our flesh–
married forever
as the Church
and its fragile, flawed
and everlasting body.

“Why do you look for the living among the dead?  He is not here; he has risen!”
Luke 24: 5-6

Thank you for following along during this Lenten season. May you have a blessed Easter celebration to carry with you through the weeks, months and years ahead.

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Where You Go, I Will Go: The Center Cannot Hold

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Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere   
The ceremony of innocence is drowned…
~William Butler Yeats from “The Second Coming”

At the still point of the turning world.
Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards;
at the still point, there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered.
Neither movement from nor towards,
Neither ascent nor decline.

Here is a place of disaffection
Time before and time after
In a dim light: neither daylight
Investing form with lucid stillness
Turning shadow into transient beauty
With slow rotation suggesting permanence
Nor darkness to purify the soul
Emptying the sensual with deprivation
Cleansing affection from the temporal.
Neither plentitude nor vacancy. 
~T.S. Eliot from “Burnt Norton” The Four Quartets

Here at the very centre of all things,
Here at the meeting place of love and loss
We all foresee, and see beyond the cross.
~Malcolm Guite from “The Anointing at Bethany”

For you always have the poor with you, and whenever you want, 
you can do good for them. But you will not always have me. 
She has done what she could; 
she has anointed my body beforehand for burial. 
And truly, I say to you, wherever the gospel is proclaimed in 
the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her.
Mark 14:7-9

This Wednesday is a long way from Ash Wednesday,
but all our Wednesdays are marked by ashes —
we begin this day with that taste of ash in our mouth:
of failed hope and broken promises…

On this Wednesday, we submit our ashen way to you —
you Easter parade of newness.
Before the sun sets, take our Wednesday and Easter us,
Easter us to joy and energy and courage and freedom;
Easter us that we may be fearless for your truth.
Come here and Easter our Wednesday with
mercy and justice and peace and generosity.
We pray as we wait for the Risen One who comes soon.
~Walter Brueggeman from “Marked By Ashes”

Jesus makes clear Who is at the center of our salvation. It is our faith and belief in Him, rather than good works we do.

Jesus’ response to Mary of Bethany’s anointing of His feet before He enters Jerusalem carries parallel messages for us all.

Mary acts out of faith even as she confronts the painful reality of Jesus’ predictions of His death and burial. Mary believes what His disciples refuse to hear.

Jesus prays later to have the reality of His suffering lifted from Him, but in obedience, He perseveres out of faith and love for the Father.

Mary acts out of steadfast love for the Master, showing single-minded devotion in the face of criticism from the disciples.

Jesus, on the cross, shows forgiveness and love even while his enemies deride and execute Him.

Mary acts out of significant personal sacrifice–pouring costly perfume worth a full year’s wages–showing her commitment to the living Christ who is here and now before her.

Jesus willingly gives the ultimate sacrifice of Himself–there is no higher price to pay.

Mary responds to His need for compassion and His response clearly shows He is deeply moved by her action.

Jesus, as man Himself, recognizes humanity’s need to be saved, and puts Himself in our place. We respond, incredulous, putting Him first in our lives.

Mary did what she could in the middle of this Holy Week to ease His distress at what He would soon confront. 

She did what she could for Him –
humbly, beautifully, simply, sacrificially.

And so we remember Mary as the harbinger of His suffering and death, just as He said we would. 

She did what she could — as should we.

stained glass from Meyers Studio, Munich 1899

This year’s Lenten theme:

…where you go I will go…
Ruth 1:16

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Where You Go, I Will Go: A Trinity of Petals

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It is at the edge of a petal that love waits.
― William Carlos Williams

All the field’s a hymn!
All trilliums unfold
white flames above their trinities
of leaves…

now
make of our hearts a field
to raise your praise
~Luci Shaw from “Spring song, very early morning” from The Green Earth: Poems of Creation

The flaw is no more
noticeable, even to me,
than a new moth-hole
in my sweater, or
a very bald spot
on the fabric of
my velvet vest.

Yet when
I hold the cloth
up to the window
the sunlight
bleeds through.
~Luci Shaw “Defect”

The trillium only thrives where death has been.
The mulch of hundreds of autumns
fluffs the bed where trillium bulbs sleep,
quietly content through most of the year.

When the frost is giving way to dew,
the trillium leaves peek out, curious, testing the air.
A few stray rays of sun filtering through the overgrowth and canopy encourage the shoots to rise, spread and unfurl.

In the middle, a white bud appears in humility,
almost embarrassed to be seen at all.

In a matter of days, the petals spread wide and bold so briefly,
curl purplish, wilt and return aground.
Leaves wither and fall unnoticed, becoming dust once again.

Then, beauty will rise from decay.
Death gives way to pure triune perfection.

This year’s Lenten theme:

…where you go I will go…
Ruth 1:16

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Where You Go, I Will Go: All This Juice and All This Joy

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Nothing is so beautiful as Spring –         
   When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;         
   Thrush’s eggs look little low heavens, and thrush         
Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring         
The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;
   The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush         
   The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush         
With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.         

What is all this juice and all this joy?         
   A strain of the earth’s sweet being in the beginning
In Eden garden. – Have, get, before it cloy,         
   Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with sinning,         
Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy,         
   Most, O maid’s child, thy choice and worthy the winning. 
~Gerard Manley Hopkins “Spring”

Once, we were innocent,
now, no longer.

Cloyed and clouded by sin.

Given a choice,
we chose sour over the sweetness we were born to,
giving up walks together in the cool of the day
to feed an appetite that could never be sated.

God made a choice to win us back with His own blood
as if we are worthy of Him.
He says we are.
He dies to prove it.

Every day I try to believe
our earth can be sweet and beautiful again.
And then maybe so can I.

This year’s Lenten theme:

…where you go I will go…
Ruth 1:16

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Where You Go, I Will Go: Turn Aside and Look

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Now Moses was pasturing the flock of Jethro His father-in-law, the priest of Midian; and He led the flock to the west side of the wilderness, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God.

And the Angel of the Lord appeared to him in a blazing fire from the midst of a bush; and He looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, yet the bush was not consumed.

So Moses said, “I must turn aside now, and see this marvelous sight, why the bush is not burned up.”  When the Lord saw that he turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush, and said, “Moses, Moses!” And Moses said, “Here I am.”  Then God said, “Do not come near here; remove your sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.”
~Exodus 3: 1-5

Earth’s crammed with heaven,
and every common bush afire with God;
but only he who sees, takes off his shoes —
the rest sit around it and pluck blackberries.
~Elizabeth Barrett Browning from “Aurora Leigh”

It is difficult to undo our own damage…
It is hard to desecrate a grove and change your mind.
The very holy mountains are keeping mum.
We doused the burning bush and cannot rekindle it;
we are lighting matches in vain under every green tree. 
~Annie Dillard from Teaching a Stone to Talk

I need to turn aside and look,
to see, as if for the first and last time,
the kindled fire that illuminates even the darkest day
and never dies away.

I can not douse the burning bush.

I am invited, by no less than God Himself,
to shed my shoes, to walk barefoot and vulnerable,
to approach His bright and burning dawn.

Only then, only then
can I say:
“Here I am! Consume me!”

This year’s Lenten theme:

…where you go I will go…
Ruth 1:16

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Where You Go, I Will Go: Desiring Dawn and Dew

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Overcome us that, so overcome,
we may be ourselves:
we desire the beginning of your reign
as we desire dawn and dew,
wetness at the birth of light.
~C.S. Lewis from The Great Divorce

When all nature is at rest, not a leaf moving,
then at evening the dew comes down —
no eye to see the pearly drops descending,
no ear to hear them falling on the verdant grass —
so does the Spirit come to you who believe.
When the heart is at rest in Jesus —
unseen, unheard by the world —
the Spirit comes, and softly fills the believing soul,
quickening all, renewing all within.
~Robert Murray McCheyne from The Love of Christ

The seed will grow well, the vine will yield its fruit, the ground will produce its crops, and the heavens will drop their dew. I will give all these things as an inheritance to the remnant of this people.
Zechariah 8:12

I have had opportunity to fly over a vast ocean to three different continents in my life. Each time, I adjusted my internal clock due to disorientation about what day and time it was.

But my reassurance came from the consistency of the sun rising and setting, washing the world with a refreshing dew the next morning.

Overcome that I could witness dawn wherever I awoke,
I felt the familiarity of home, even in far off lands.

I am reminded the Son rises over a vast Kingdom without borders, without corruption, without alienation, without end.

No matter where I sleep, I am covered by His cleansing dew.

Do not be overwhelmed with evil but overcome evil with good.
Romans 12:21

This year’s Lenten theme:

…where you go I will go…
Ruth 1:16

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Drop down dew, ye heavens, from above,
and let the clouds rain the Just One.

Latin lyrics:
Rorate caeli desuper, et nubes pluant iustum.

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