Category: wonder

Winged With Celestial Azure

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Thou art the Iris, fair among the fairest,
   Who, armed with golden rod
And winged with the celestial azure, bearest
   The message of some God.
~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow from Flower-de-Luce

At the end of my suffering
there was a door.

Hear me out: that which you call death
I remember.

Overhead, noises, branches of the pine shifting.
Then nothing. The weak sun
flickered over the dry surface.

It is terrible to survive
as consciousness
buried in the dark earth.

Then it was over: that which you fear, being
a soul and unable
to speak, ending abruptly, the stiff earth
bending a little.  And what I took to be
birds darting in low shrubs.

You who do not remember
passage from the other world
I tell you I could speak again: whatever
returns from oblivion returns
to find a voice:

from the center of my life came
a great fountain, deep blue
shadows on azure sea water.
~Louise Glück “The Wild Iris”

It doesn’t have to be
the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
small stones; just
pay attention, then patch
a few words together and don’t try
to make them elaborate, this isn’t
a contest but the doorway
into thanks, and a silence in which
another voice may speak.
~Mary Oliver “Blue Iris”

May your blooms be floriferous and in good form,
Distinctive, with good substance, flare, and airborne,
With standards and falls that endure, never torn.
May you display many buds and blooms sublime,
In graceful proportion on strong stalks each day,
Gently floating above the fans and the fray.
May you too reach toward the moon and stars,
Bloom after bloom, many seasons in the sun,
Enjoying your life, health, and each loved one,
Until your living days are artfully done.
~Georgia Gudykunst  “Iris Blessing”

Whenever I allow my eye to peer inside
an iris, it takes all my attention.


I need a flotation device
and depth finder as
I’m likely to get lost,
sweeping and swooning
through inner space
of complex tunnels, canyons and corners,
then coming up for air and diving in again
to journey into exotic locales
draped in silken hues.

This fairy land of petals on a stem,
is birthed by the creative genius of God.

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Revery Alone Will Do…

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To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee, a
One clover, and a bee,
And revery.
The revery alone will do,
If bees are few.
~Emily Dickinson

Bees do have a smell, you know, and if they don’t they should, for their feet are dusted with spices from a million flowers.
~Ray Bradbury from Dandelion Wine

Pollinators are having a rough time of it these days, combating man-made insecticides or failing to find flowering weeds to visit given the wide-spread use of herbicides. Plus, there is the American penchant for mowing grassy landscapes to look perfectly uniform and weed-free.

When I see a honey or bumble bee happily doing its job, it is a cause for celebration.

I was thrilled to see the latest research reported today demonstrating the ability of a flowering plant, like a snapdragon in the study, to “hear” (through vibro-acoustic signals) the buzz of an approaching pollinator, responding instantly by increasing its nectar volume and sweetness.
The postulated feedback mechanism is that pollinators will be more attracted to a plant that “rewards” their visit, thereby increasing the likelihood of ongoing pollination visits and survival of further generations of both creatures.

This world depends on a revery of communication we can only begin to understand – between plant to plant, plant to insect — a daydream of connections bringing the spicy smell of pollen from a million flowers to the lowly feet of the bee, which generates more of both as well as honey for you and me.
May it be, may it be, may it bee…

May we know such reverie.

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Bubble Wrapped

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We wove hip-high field grass 
into tunnels 

knotting the tops 
of bunched handfuls the drooping 
heads tied together. 

My seven siblings and I 
sheltered ourselves

inside these labyrinths 
in a galaxy of grasses.
~Heather Cahoon “Shelter”

As a child I enjoyed exploring our hay field to find the tallest patch of grass. There, like a dog turning circles before a nap, I’d trample down the waving stems that stretched up almost to my eyes, and create a grass nest, cozy enough for just me. 

I’d lie down in this green fortress, gazing up at the blue sky, and watch the clouds drift lazily by. I’d suck on a hollow stem or two, to savor the bitter grass juice. Scattered around my grassy cage, attached to the broad grass stems, would be innumerable clumps of white foam. I’d tease out the hidden green spittle bugs with their little black eyes from their white frothy bubble encasement. I hoped to watch them make foam, to actually see them in action doing what they do best, but they would leap away.

The grassy nest was a time of retreat from the world by being buried inside the world. I felt protected, surrounded, encompassed and free –at least until I heard my mother calling for me from the house, or a rain shower started, driving me to run for cover, or my dog found me by sniffing out my green path.

It has been years since I hid in a grass fort or tried to defroth spit bugs. I am overdue, I’m sure.

Over twenty years ago, on a spring morning, I was driving into work on one of our county’s rural two-lane roads, savoring a grumbly mood and wishing I was heading somewhere else on a bright and sunny day. My mind was busy with the anticipation of the workday when I noticed a slight shift to the right over the fog line by the driver in the car ahead of me. Suddenly I realized why, in a moment of stark clarity. 

An empty gravel truck and trailer rig was approaching as it came over a hill, its driver seemingly unaware his huge trailer was starting to whip back and forth behind him. As the huge rig approached me, the trailer was coming back to my side of the road at a nearly ninety degree angle from the truck, filling up the entire lane in front of me. 

I had no choice but to run my car off the road into a grassy field to avoid being hit head-on by the still-attached but runaway trailer. Only by chance were there no deep ditches at that particular point in the road. My car dove right into tall grass, enfolded in a shroud of green, shielding me from a tangle of metal and certain death. 

It was a near miss, but a miss nonetheless.

I sat still for a moment, gathering my wits and picking up what was left of my frayed nerves from where they been strewn about. All I could see in front and around me was grass, just like my little childhood fortresses. 

It was very tempting to stay right there, hidden away in the safety of the grass, as if I had been a spittle bug wrapped in a foam cocoon, my heart racing with the relief of still being alive.

Instead I was able to drive out of the grassy field, and go on to work to do what I had been grumbling about that day, abruptly made aware of the privilege of having a life to live, a job to go to, and a grassy field perfectly situated to swallow me up into safety.

It was only later, as I called my husband about what had taken place, that I wept. Until then, I couldn’t stop smiling. I felt encased in liquid bubble wrap, foam-protected by One bigger and stronger, in whose image I had been made.

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That Kind of Day

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If ever there were a spring day so perfect,
so uplifted by a warm intermittent breeze
that it made you want to throw
open all the windows in the house
and unlatch the door to the canary’s cage,
indeed, rip the little door from its jamb,
a day when the cool brick paths
and the garden bursting with peonies
seemed so etched in sunlight
that you felt like taking
a hammer to the glass paperweight
on the living room end table,
releasing the inhabitants
from their snow-covered cottage
so they could walk out,
holding hands and squinting
into this larger dome of blue and white,
well, today is just that kind of day.
~Billy Collins  “Today”

The Truman Show was about someone stuck in a “perfect” world,
safely contained, in a perpetual snow globe.

Today I want to release the caged and captive,
to be immersed in what awaits outside.

Indeed, Someone sprung me loose to find my Spring,
in one breath-taking and breath-giving moment.

Let’s open wide the windows…

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What a Little Thing

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Four ducks on a pond,
A grass-bank beyond,
A blue sky of spring,
White clouds on the wing;
What a little thing
To remember for years
To remember with tears!
~William Allingham “A Memory”

Tell no one of the wonders
of the Mallard duck’s green head,
how it glistens in the sun
against the gentle red
of the Willow branches budding
in the golden spring sun,
as they paddle through the waters
where the creek has come undone.

Tell no one of the beauty
of the butterflies that flit
through the flowers not yet budding
on the little sandy spit,
how their wings will keep them searching
for the hope that blooms in Spring
as they hover over what will be
a very lovely thing.

Tell no one of the glory
or the warmth of young spring’s sun,
of the joy that comes from watching
the smallest creatures run,
of the life that is teeming
in the wake of newborn day,
of the power that hope holds
over all we do and say.

Tell no one of the miracle
that is this daily life,
that cuts you to the quick
as if with sharpest knife.
Tell no one what you notice,
into which your wonder delves.
Tell no one of these things —
let them know it for themselves.
~Elizabeth Wickland “Tell No One”

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens

~William Carlos Williams, “The Red Wheelbarrow” from The Collected Poems of William Carlos Williams, Volume I, 1909-1939

so much depends
upon me riding a red trike
chased by my little brother

now rusty memories frozen in time
and cobwebs

such a little thing is
never to be forgotten

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Just Can’t Help It…

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For half-an-hour he writes words upon a scrap of paper….
words in which the soul’s blood pours out, 
like the body’s blood from a wound.
He writes secretly this mad diary,
all his passion and longing,
his dark and dreadful gratitude to God,
his idle allegories, the tales that tell themselves in his head;
the joy that comes on him sometimes (he cannot help it)
at the sacred intoxication of existence…
~G.K. Chesterton in a letter to his fiancé

When I was six or seven years old, I used to take a precious penny of my own and hide it for someone else to find. It was a curious compulsion; sadly, I’ve never been seized by it since. For some reason I always “hid” the penny along the same stretch of sidewalk up the street. I would cradle it at the roots of a sycamore, say, or in a hole left by a chipped-off piece of sidewalk.

Then I would take a piece of chalk, and, starting at either end of the block, draw huge arrows leading up to the penny from both directions. After I learned to write I labeled the arrows: SURPRISE AHEAD or MONEY THIS WAY. I was greatly excited, during all this arrow-drawing, at the thought of the first lucky passer-by who would receive in this way, regardless of merit, a free gift from the universe. But I never lurked about. I would go straight home and not give the matter another thought, until, some months later, I would be gripped again by the impulse to hide another penny.

The world is fairly studded and strewn with pennies cast broadside from a generous hand. But — and this is the point — who gets excited by a mere penny?

It is dire poverty indeed when a man is so malnourished and fatigued that he won’t stoop to pick up a penny. But if you cultivate a healthy poverty and simplicity, so that finding a penny will literally make your day, then, since the world is in fact planted in pennies, you have with your poverty bought a lifetime of days.

It is that simple.
~Annie Dillard from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

Because the world is full of ugly things, we need the Sabbath to feed our soul with beauty.

~Tim Keller

I just can’t help the joy of simply being alive.

I can grouse with the best of them about the state of the world and our country’s current political mess and you name it… 

I know better than to grumble. I’ve seen where negative thoughts lead and I can feel them aching in my bones when I steep myself in it. The sky is grayer, the clouds are thicker, the night is darker–on and on to its overwhelming suffocating conclusion.

I don’t ever want to feel so impoverished that finding a penny or admiring a flower doesn’t make my day better.

I have the privilege to choose joy rather than bathe in the bleak. Some live with so much suffering, joy is out of reach – in Ukraine, in Gaza, in Sudan, in Myanmar, and elsewhere.

Like an opportunistic cat finding that one ray of sun in the darkness and melting into it, I can absorb and equip myself to become radiant as well.

I’m not putting on a “happy face” — instead joy adopts me, holds me close in the tough times and won’t abandon me. Though at times joy may dip temporarily behind a cloud and the rain will fall, I know the sun is there even when I can’t see or feel it.

Today, on this Sabbath, joy is mine to choose because joy has chosen me, this morning and every morning.

I just can’t help it.

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Stained Glass

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People are like stained-glass windows.
They sparkle and shine when the sun is out,
but when the darkness sets in,
their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within.
~ Elisabeth Kübler–Ross

Photo from http://www.fumcoly.org

The Methodist church of my childhood had a sanctuary lined by colorful rectangles of stained glass windows. Each church member had an opportunity to choose and place a colored pane matching his or her stage of life, to become a permanent part of the portrait of a diverse church family. Mosaics of colored sections represented the transition through life, moving from childhood in the windows at the entrance, on to adolescence,  then to young adulthood, moving to middle age, and then finally to the elder years nearest the altar.

Rainbows of color crisscrossed the pews and aisles, starting with pale and barely defined green and yellow at the outset, blending into a blossom of blue, then becoming a startling fervor of red,  fading into a tranquil purple past the center, and lastly immersed in the warmth of orange as one approached the brown of the wood paneled altar. 

Depending on where one chose to sit, the light bearing a particular color combination was cast on open pages of scripture, or favorite hymns, or on the skin and clothing of the people,  reflecting the essence of that life phase. 

Included in the design was the seemingly random but intentional scattering of all of the colors in each panel. Gold and orange panes were sprinkled in the “youth” window predicting the wisdom to come, and a smattering of some greens, blues and reds were found throughout the “orange” window of old age,  just like the “spark”  of younger years so often seen in the eyes of the our eldest citizens.

The colored windows reflected the truth of God’s plan for our lives. There was certainty in the unrelenting passage of time; there was no turning back or turning away from what was to come. 

Although each stage shone with its own unique beauty,  none was as warm and welcoming as the fiery glow of the autumn of life. Those final windows focused their brilliance on the plain wood of the cross above the altar.

Beyond the stained glass,
as life fades from the richest of colors
to the earthy tones of dusty frames,
the kaleidoscope of God’s illumination
continues to shine, glorious.

Photo from http://www.fumcoly.org
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We are like windows
Stained with colors of the rainbow
Set in a darkened room
Till the bridegroom comes to shining through

Then the colors fall around our feet
Over those we meet
Covering all the gray that we see
Rainbow colors of assorted hues
Come exchange your blues
For His love that you see shining through me

We are His daughters and sons
We are the colorful ones
We are the kids of the King
Rejoice in everything

My colors grow so dim
When I start to fall away from Him
But up comes the strongest wind
That he sends to blow me back into his arms again

And then the colors fall around my feet
Over those I meet
Changing all the gray that I see
Rainbow colors of the Risen Son
Reflect the One
The One who came to set us all free

We are His daughters and sons
We are the colorful ones
We are the kids of the King
Rejoice in everything

We are like windows
Stained with colors of the rainbow
No longer set in a darkened room
Cause the bridegroom wants to shine from you

No longer set in a darkened room
Cause the bridegroom wants to shine from you

Lyrics by Keith Green

A Blink of God’s Eye…

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Nobody can keep on being angry if she looks into the heart of a pansy for a little while.
~L.M. Montgomery

One has to wonder where they got
their reputation for pansiness.
Purple and proud, or any color
you might imagine, they grow
where they want to grow, despite the cold,
so much unlike their flashy cousins,
impatiens, petunias, scarlet sage,
petals falling off at first frost,
hardly hearty at all.
Keep your prima donna blossoms,
loud and boastful annuals, brief
and seedless. I’ll take the pansies
of the world, unassuming, resilient,
quietly doing what they know to do
~Scott Owen “Pansies”

As a seed, I was shot out the back end of a blue jay
when, heedless, she flew over the meadow.
She had swallowed me in my homeland when she spied me
lying easy under the sun—briefly, I called her Mother
before I passed through her gullet like a ghost.
In a blink of God’s eye I was an orphan. I trembled
where I fell, alone in the dirt. That first night
was a long night, early May and chilly, and I remember
rain filled my furrow. I called out for mercy—
only a wolverine wandered by. I cursed my luck,
I cursed the happenstance of this world, I smelled
his hot stink, but he nosed me deep into the mud—
this was the gift of obscurity. I germinated, hidden
from the giants of earth, the jostling stalks,
the various, boisterous bloomers, and this was my salvation.
After seven days and nights I pushed through—
yes. Here I am, kissable: your tiny, purple profusion.
~Lisa Bellamy “Wild Pansy”

The world is in sore need of a cure for the grumbles.

Fortunately, it exists right outside in our back yards, along sidewalks and in gravelly vacant lots.

A cheerful face is irresistible to all but the crabbiest among us, guaranteed to bring a smile every time.

Beyond the obvious charm exists a depth of heart — roots able to thrive in the thinnest of soil, at home among rocks and weeds,  resilient even when tromped on.

We carry its seeds on the tread of our boots despite our grumbling and help spread the good news: anger left unfed will dry up and blow away.

Yet the constant loyal heart of the pansy will last. 
It keeps smiling back – simply a twinkle in God’s eye.

For pansies are, I think, the little gleams
Of children’s visions from a world of dreams,
Jewels of innocence and joy and mirth,
Alight with laughter as they fall to earth.

So tread not rashly, children, lest you crush
A part of childhood in a thoughtless rush.
Would you not treat them gently if you knew
Pansies are little bits of children too?
~R.X. Lehmann from “Pansies”

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An Immense, Tender, Terrible, Heart-Breaking Beauty

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And the secret garden bloomed and bloomed and every morning revealed new miracles.

In the robin’s nest there were Eggs and the robin’s mate sat upon them keeping them warm with her feathery little breast and careful wings.

….in the garden
there was nothing which was not quite like themselves,
nothing which did not understand
the wonderfulness of what was happening to them,
the immense, tender, terrible, heart-breaking beauty
and solemnity of Eggs.

If there had been one person in that garden who had not known through all his or her innermost being
that if an Egg were taken away or hurt
the whole world would whirl round and crash
through space and come to an end—

if there had been even one
who did not feel it and act accordingly
there could have been no happiness
even in that golden springtime air.

But they all knew it and felt it
and the robin and his mate knew they knew it.
~Frances Hodgson Burnett from The Secret Garden

Some say you’re lucky
If nothing shatters it.

But then you wouldn’t
Understand poems or songs.
You’d never know
Beauty comes from loss.

It’s deep inside every person:
A tear tinier
Than a pearl or thorn.

It’s one of the places
Where the beloved is born.
~Gregory Orr “Some Say You’re Lucky” from Concerning the Book That Is the Body of the Beloved

We all start out in the secret garden of a fallopian tube
as an egg pierced to become so much more…
–  each tiny part of the least of us  –
– whether brain, heart, lungs or liver –
wonderfully made,
even if discarded
or fallen from the nest.

The act of creation of something so sacred
is immense, tender, terrible, beautiful, heart-breaking,
and so very solemn and joyful.

The act of harming one tiny part of creation
hurts the whole world;
we risk whirling round and crashing through space
and coming to an end.

If there is even one who does not feel it and act accordingly,
there can be no happiness.

But they all knew it and felt it and they knew they knew it.

And what is born broken is beloved nevertheless.

photo by Josh Scholten
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Through the Unknown, Unremembered Gate

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What seemed to be the end proved to be the beginning…
Suddenly a wall becomes a gate.
~Henri Nouwen from Gracias! A Letter of Consolation

As Christians we do not believe in walls,
but that life lies open before us;
that the gate can always be unbarred;
that there is no final abandonment or desertion.
We do not believe that it can ever be “too late.”

We believe that the world is full of doors that can be opened. Between us and others.
Between the people around us.
Between today and tomorrow.
Our own inner person can be unlocked too:
even within our own selves,
there are doors that need to be opened.

If we open them and enter,
we can unlock ourselves, too,
and so await whatever is coming to free us and make us whole.
~ Jörg Zink from “Doors to the Feast”

What we call the beginning is often the end
And to make an end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from.

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, unremembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
~T.S. Eliot from “Little Gidding” The Four Quartets

There we shall rest and we shall see;
we shall see and we shall love;
we shall love and we shall praise.
Behold what shall be in the end and shall not end.
~Augustine of Hippo ‘The City of God,’ Bk. XXII, Chap. 30

We stand outside the gate,
incapable of opening it ourselves,
watching as God Himself
throws it open wide. 

We choose to enter this unknown, unremembered gate
into the endless length of days,
where we shall see and we shall love,
we shall love and we shall praise –

or we choose to remain outside,
lingering in the familiar confines
of what we know,
though it destroys us.

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With thanks to conductor, composer, singer Ben Kornelis for putting these beautiful Augustinian words to music

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