Winter is an etching,
spring a watercolor,
summer an oil painting
and autumn a mosaic of them all.
~Stanley Horowitz
I’m not so different from an ear of mosaic maize,
multifaceted pieces of tesserae
fit together just so.
Depending on how the Light falls
I could be tile to be tread or
a kaleidoscope of stained glass reflections in sacred space,
a gemstone necklace of colored beads,
or simply corn on the cob hanging from a stalk.
Plain and infinitely luminous,
just like the Artist Himself.
A dim veil hangs over the landscape and flood,
And the hills are all mellowed in haze,
While Fall, creeping on like a monk ‘neath his hood,
Plucks the thick-rustling wealth of the maize.
And long for this manna that springs from the sod
Shall we gratefully give Him the praise,
The source of all bounty, our Father and God,
Who sent us from heaven the maize!
~William Fosdick “The Maize”
The autumn garden can feel like a treasure hunt as we pull out and sort through the dead and dying vines and stalks: the giant zucchini growing undetected under leaves, the cucumber hanging from a cornstalk, the fat hollowed beans ready to burst with seed.
Yet the greatest Easter Egg of all hidden away in husk and cornsilk is this glass gem corn, a maize variety Dan planted in the spring. We’ve never experimented with it before and it grew listlessly, almost half-hearted, with stunted stalks and few apparent ears, pitiful next to our robust sweet corn crop.
It fooled us; this corn is pure gold in a kaleidoscope display. The ears are meager but glowing like stained glass, colorful quilt patches on a stalk. We gathered it up for “Show and Tell” at church last night, showing our Chapel friends what God can do with His unending palette of heaven-sent color and imagination. People come in all colors too, thanks to His artistry, but not nearly so varied as this kernels of colored glass.
It is not that
the sun comes up
or the earth goes around
or that the plants sprout
and take up rain
and flower and set seed
or that our hearts pound
five thousand times an hour –
It’s that we don’t have
to go out with tethers
to make the heavenly bodies
move correctly around
or caress the ground
and tease the stems upright
and separate the petals
or tap our chests
continually with little hammers
and we can put
our attention elsewhere.
~Michael Goldman, “The Miracle” from Unified Light Theory
So much we’ve been told we must care for:
our babies
our elders
our animals
our gardens
our water
our air
ourselves
and so much more for which we are mere witness.
If we don’t take notice,
we lose out on the miracle
of knowing every breath, every heartbeat
is sheer miracle.
The rose is a rose,
And was always a rose.
But the theory now goes
That the apple’s a rose,
And the pear is, and so’s
The plum, I suppose.
The dear only know
What will next prove a rose.
You, of course, are a rose–
But were always a rose.
~Robert Frost, “The Rose Family” from The Poetry of Robert Frost: The Collected Poems
We are more alike than we are different,
from every thing to every one,
yet we still strive
to discriminate and differentiate.
We arose from the same origin:
put together atom to atom,
amino acid to amino acid,
conceived within the mind of God,
formed by His Hands and Breath,
designed as treasured artwork
whether flower or fruit or fetus.
So we can only know
what He has told us
in His carefully chosen Words:
we are dear,
we are His rose,
in whatever form or function we appear,
however we have been put together~
We will always be His rose.
There is no rose of such virtue
As is the Rose that bore Jesu:
Alleluia.
For in this rose was contained
Heaven and earth in a small space.
Wondrous thing. Res miranda.
By that rose we may well see
There is one God in persons three.
Equally formed. Pares forma.
The angels sang; the shepherds, too:
Glory to God in the highest!
Let us rejoice. Gaudeamus.
Leave we all these worldly cares
And follow we this joyful birth.
Let us be transformed. Transeamus.
~Benjamin Britten “There is no rose” from “Ceremony of the Carols”
Sunrise is an event that calls forth solemn music in the very depths of our nature, as if one’s whole being had to attune itself to the cosmos and praise God for the new day, praise him in the name of all the creatures that ever were or ever will be.
I look at the rising sun and feel that now upon me falls the responsibility of seeing what all my ancestors have seen, in the Stone Age and even before it, praising God before me. Whether or not they praised him then, for themselves, they must praise him now in me. When the sun rises each one of us is summoned by the living and the dead to praise God.
~Thomas Merton from Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander
I’m well aware not everyone greets the morning with praise; dawn signals the start of a new day of painful relationships, back-breaking work, and unending discouragement. I know people who keep themselves up until 3 AM just so they can sleep through the sunrise and somehow find a way to start their day at noon after all hint of morning has passed.
Instead I’m one of those barely tolerable “morning” persons, waking up without an alarm, ready to rise, a song in my heart and a smile on my lips. The gift of a new day and another try at life is a source of great joy and inspiration to me.
God keeps bringing the sun back to us, day in and day out. We, His creatures, are given yet another chance.
May His Name be praised evermore.
Here, on this surge of hill, I find myself
not as I am or will be or once was,
not as the measure of days defines my soul;
beyond all that a being of breath and bone,
partaker of wind and sun and air and earth,
I stand on the surge of hill and know myself
Below, the stars sink landward, and above
I breathe with their slow glimmer; fields are gone,
the woods are fallen into the speechless dark;
no claim, no voice, no motion, no demand.
It is alone we end then and alone
we go, creatures of solitary light;
the finger of truth is laid upon my heart:
See and be wise and unafraid, a part
of stars and earth-wind and the deepening night.
~Jane Tyson Clement “Here On This Surge of Hill”
The world feels like a fearsome place
with endless stories of tragedy and loss,
too much pain and suffering,
blinding me in its darkness.
Yet I listen to my risen Creator and Savior:
Be not afraid
Come have breakfast
Touch and see
Follow me
Peace be with you
As I am but mere breath and bone,
a wisp in a moment of time,
this truth anchors my heart:
I am called by His solitary light.
Divinity is not playful.
The universe was not made in jest
but in solemn incomprehensible earnest.
By a power that is unfathomably secret,
and holy,
and fleet.
There is nothing to be done about it,
but ignore it,
or see.
~Annie Dillard from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—
his eternal power and divine nature—
have been clearly seen,
being understood from what has been made,
so that people are without excuse.
Romans 1:20
We weren’t conceived by random happenstance,
including so many millions not welcomed
but wished or washed away before taking a breath.
We are here because we were earnestly needed and wanted,
by a power and divinity beyond comprehension
with a capacity for love and compassion
beyond anything in our earthly experience.
We aren’t a cosmic joke,
or random couplings of DNA.
We aren’t pawns in the universe’s chess game.
We may look silly as we intentionally loll about in the smelly stuff of life,
or we may think what we say or do doesn’t matter a hill of beans,
but we are created to clearly see God for who He is,
and in whose image He made us.
He won’t be ignored;
we have no more excuses.
It is time to open our eyes,
to come and see.
