Tag: bud

He Sees Us As We Are: Shut to Mystery

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What is the crying at Jordan?
Who hears, O God, the prophecy?
Dark is the season, dark
our hearts and shut to mystery.

Who then shall stir in this darkness
prepare for joy in the winter night?
Mortal in darkness we
lie down, blind-hearted, seeing no light.

Lord, give us grace to awake us,
to see the branch that begins to bloom;
in great humility
is hid all heaven in a little room.

Now comes the day of salvation,
in joy and terror the Word is born!
God gives himself into our lives;
Oh, let salvation dawn!
~Carol Christopher Drake

We, His people, move from joy at the wooden manger to despair at the wooden cross; God sees us as we stumble along, blind-hearted.

We are bound up tight as a bud reluctant to bloom.

He gives Himself to us;
He brings joy to our miserable and dark existence;
He dies for us;
He rises to give us eternal hope of salvation;
He calls us by name so we’ll open up and recognize Him.

This mystery is too much for those unwilling to accept that such sacrifice is possible. We are blind to the possibility that His Spirit cannot be measured, touched, weighed or tracked, yet has the power to stir and overwhelm darkness.  We prefer the safety of remaining tight as an unopened bud, hid in the little room of our hearts rather than risk the transition to full blossom and fruitfulness.

Yet God sees us as we are: budding potential.

Lord, give us grace in our blindness, having given us Yourself. 
Prepare us for embracing your mystery. 
Prepare us for joy.
Prepare us to bloom.

This year’s Lenten theme on Barnstorming:

God sees us as we are,
loves us as we are,
and accepts us as we are.
But by His grace,
He does not leave us where we are.
~Tim Keller

A Bright Sadness: The Branch That Begins to Bloom

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What word informs the world,
and moves the worm along in his blind tunnel?

What secret purple wisdom tells the iris edges
to unfold in frills? What juiced and emerald thrill

urges the sap until the bud resolves
its tight riddle? What irresistible command

unfurls this cloud above this greening hill,
or one more wave — its spreading foam and foil —

across the flats of sand? What minor thrust
of energy issues up from humus in a froth

of ferns? Delicate as a laser, it filigrees
the snow, the stars. Listen close — What silver sound

thaws winter into spring? Speaks clamor into singing?
Gives love for loneliness? It is this

un-terrestrial pulse, deep as heaven, that folds you
in its tingling embrace, gongs in your echo heart.
~Luci Shaw “What Secret Purple Wisdom” from The Green Earth: Poems of Creation 
~

The road that took Him from wooden manger to wooden cross is one we walk in joy and terror through His Word.

He is given to us;
He gives Himself to bring joy to our miserable and dark existence;

He dies for us;
He rises to give us eternal hope of salvation;
He calls us by name and we recognize Him.

This mystery is too much for too many unwilling to accept that such sacrifice is possible. His sacrifice and many parts of His body continue to be oppressed and persecuted every day.  We are blind-hearted to the possibility that this Spirit that cannot be measured, touched, weighed or tracked can stir and overwhelm darkness.  We prefer the safety of remaining tight in the bud, hid in the little room of our hearts rather than risk the joy and terror of full blossom and fruitfulness.

Lord, give us grace in our blindness, having given us Yourself.  Prepare us for embracing your mystery. 

Prepare us for joy.
Prepare us to bloom.

What is the crying at Jordan?
Who hears, O God, the prophecy?
Dark is the season, dark
our hearts and shut to mystery.

Who then shall stir in this darkness
prepare for joy in the winter night?
Mortal in darkness we
lie down, blind-hearted, seeing no light.

Lord, give us grace to awake us,
to see the branch that begins to bloom;
in great humility
is hid all heaven in a little room.

Now comes the day of salvation,
in joy and terror the Word is born!
God gives himself into our lives;
Oh, let salvation dawn!
~Carol Christopher Drake

Willingness to Give Something

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raindropsonroses1

roseinside

For a long time
     I was not even
        in this world, yet
           every summer

every rose
     opened in perfect sweetness
        and lived
           in gracious repose,

in its own exotic fragrance,
     in its huge willingness to give
        something, from its small self,
           to the entirety of the world...
~Mary Oliver from “The Poet Visits The Museum of Fine Arts”

redrose

This time of year, I go out to our flower garden twice a week and pick several fresh rosebuds for the bud vase on our kitchen table.  This feels like a luxury to interrupt the natural unfolding of a blossom simply so it can be enjoyed indoors for a few days.  Yet “its huge willingness to give something” grants me permission to do this.  I am consoled that there will be more buds where those came from.  The blooms will continue to grace our table until October when the first hard frost will sap them of all color and fragrance, leaving them deadened knots of brown curled petals.  They give no more for seven long months.

I wait impatiently for that first spring bud to appear, forcing myself to wait several weeks before I begin rosebud harvesting.  Although roses from the florist may be perfect color and long lasting,  they are neither as sweet nor their scent as exotic as those growing in the soil right under our windows.

It is a wee joy receiving this humble gift from the garden.  It is enough that a rosebush in gracious repose gave its small self long before I was and will continue long after me.   I hope I am as willing to give something from my small self during my time here, and may it ever be as sweet.

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Root and All in All

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Little flower,
but if I could understand what you are,
root and all in all,
I should know what God and man is.
~  Tennyson

 

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Am I root, or am I bud?
Am I stem or am I leaf?
All in all, I am
but the merest image
of God’s fruiting glory,
the tears shed
as He broke
into blossom.

 

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We Haste Away So Soon

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daffodil152

 

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Fair Daffodils, we weep to see
You haste away so soon;
As yet the early-rising sun
Has not attain’d his noon.
Stay, stay,
Until the hasting day
Has run
But to the even-song;
And, having pray’d together, we
Will go with you along.
 
We have short time to stay, as you,
We have as short a spring;
As quick a growth to meet decay,
As you, or anything.
We die
As your hours do, and dry
Away,
Like to the summer’s rain;
Or as the pearls of morning’s dew,
Ne’er to be found again.
~Robert Herrick “To Daffodils”
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olddaffodil1
So short a spring:
today some parts of this land are in the throes of winter with blizzards, ice storms and snow drifts keeping them home-bound on the Sabbath.  There is little hope for the brave bulbs that tried to surface from the ground over the last several weeks.
Here in the northwest, we are springing late as well, with chill winds and unending rain. The daffodils have melted on the stem unable to sustain the battering while hordes of slugs luxuriate with unending voracious appetites for their petals.
We ourselves aren’t much different than these tender blooms – though we hope not to be chewed to death, we are, after all,  here today, gone tomorrow.  When bud bursts to blossom, we flame hearty with such exuberant joy, then wither until we are no more.
We are, for our brief days, a reflection of the Sun itself, just as we should be.
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olddaffodil3

It Sings in Me

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The roofs are shining from the rain,
The sparrows twitter as they fly,
And with a windy April grace
The little clouds go by.

Yet the back yards are bare and brown
With only one unchanging tree–
I could not be so sure of Spring
Save that it sings in me.
–  Sara Teasdale, “April”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Frogs plutter and squdge-and frogs beat the air with a recurring thin steel sliver of melody.
Crows go in fives and tens; they march their black feathers past a blue pool; they celebrate an old festival.
A spider is trying his webs, a pink bug sits on my hand washing his forelegs.
I might ask: Who are these people? 
~Carl Sandburg from “Just Before April Came”

 

 

 

And so spring asks:

Who are these people?

Here we are, closing in on mid-April and it has been a week of heavily drifting snowstorms in the Great Lakes and northeast, tornado weather in the south, and blustering wind and rain in the northwest.  I am not so sure of Spring nor is anyone else.

Yet it sings in me.  Yes it sings.

The calendar does not lie, nor does my nose.  The pollen counts are rising despite the rains and as I step outside in early dawn, I can catch the slightest fragrance of just-opening cherry and apple blossoms in the orchard.  Within a week there will be sweet perfume in the air everywhere and the fruit trees become clothed in white puffy clouds of blossom before bursting full into green.

In defiance of the calendar, our oak trees cling stubbornly to their brown bedraggled fall leaves as if ashamed to ever appear naked, even for a week.  In May they will go straight from brown to green without a moment of bare knobby branches.

Even so, it sings in me.  Yes it sings.

A morning bird symphony tunes up ever earlier including the “scree” and chatter from bald eagles high up in the fir trees surrounding our house.  Nesting has begun despite the wet and cold and wind because their nest is the secure home that calls them back, again and again, year after year.

Like them, it sings in me.  Yes it sings.

I rise opening like a bud, I dress my nakedness to cover up my knobbiness, I wander about outside exulting in the free concert, I manage to do chores despite the distractions — this routine of mine which is so unchanging through the calendar days becomes glorious gift and privilege.

Hopefulness sings in me in Spring.  Yes it sings.

 

 

 

Preparing Through Parable: See For Yourself

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Look at the fig tree and all the trees. 30 When they sprout leaves, you can see for yourselves and know that summer is near. 31 Even so, when you see these things happening, you know that the kingdom of God is near.
Luke 21: 29-31

 

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I can see it for myself: tender twigs are sprouting with new growth, buds are opening into a kaleidoscope of colors, winter is giving way to spring.  This parable predicts the “see for yourself” event at the tomb in just a little for a week —it describes life coming from the still and the dead.

Just keep watch: it is happening before our eyes.  You can see for yourself!

 

May my eyes see, my ears hear, my heart understand. He prepares me with parable.

 

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Preparing Through Parable: A Yeasty Mix

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toastedbread

 

The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into about sixty pounds of flour until it worked all through the dough.
Matthew 13:33

 

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An infant is a pucker of the earth’s thin skin; so are we. 
We arise like budding yeasts and break off; 
we forget our beginnings. 
A mammal swells and circles and lays him down. 
You and I have finished swelling; 
our circling periods are playing out, 
but we can still leave footprints in a trail whose end we do know.
~Annie Dillard from For the Time Being

 

drizzleplumbuds

 

…be comforted in the fact that the ache in your heart and the confusion in your soul means that you are still alive, still human, and still open to the beauty of the world, even though you have done nothing to deserve it.
Paul Harding in Tinkers

 

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We are all mixed together within the Word, created to bud and swell and yield and rise and transform the dough around us, even when we are hurting and frozen and drenched and dry.

Like yeast, we can make a difference to all that is flat and unyielding.  May it be so.

May my eyes see, my ears hear, my heart understand.  He prepares me with parable.

 

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Tree Secrets

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Of winter’s lifeless world each tree
Now seems a perfect part;
Yet each one holds summer’s secret
Deep down within its heart.
~ Charles G. Stater

 

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Enduring the dark and quiet winter months, the trees appear to doze deep while standing stark naked against the sky, roused only by the whipping of the winds and when breaking under a heavy coat of ice.

It is uneasy sleep.

When I look close now, I can tell:
they conceal summer secrets under their skin, the sap flows thick and sluggish, there is a barely palpable pulse in those branches.

A heart pumps within, readying.

 

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Buds So Subtle

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pastureice4

I see buds so subtle
they know, though fat, that this is no time to bloom.
~John Updike from “December, Outdoors”

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pastureice

Yesterday, our farm trees and bushes filled with buds of ice reflecting a bright and crisp Christmas sunlight.  It was a crystalline wonderland celebrating the subtle beauty of winter.

Yet even today at the local grocery store garden centers, there will no longer be buyers for “winter” products — overnight, Christmas completely disappears except for the “remainder” and “two-for-one” tables. Unsold poinsettias and fresh evergreen wreaths are hauled away along with the oddly shaped and drying Christmas trees to make way for containers of unbearably cheerful primroses and early forced narcissus and hyacinth plants.  Barely a week into winter, Valentine’s Day and spring will be right in our faces as we wheel past with the grocery cart, a seductive lure to effectively skip a whole season of restorative watch-and-wait.  Color and fragrance and lush blooms are handed to us without even taking a breather.

Dormant plants and hibernating animals have the right idea this time of year: “already, but not yet.”  Rather than slogging daily through the burden of mud, skittering precariously across icy fields or reaching up out of snow drifts, they quietly rest up.  Well fed and pregnant with potential, they are alive and well beneath a facade of sleep.  Come out too early and risk starvation and frostbite.

So it’s not yet time to bloom — being a subtle bud is exactly what is needed.  Out-of-season blossoms need not apply.

We swell with potential to dream dreams of a glorious growth to come.

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