There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. Isaiah 11:1
There are days we live as if death were nowhere in the background; from joy to joy to joy, from wing to wing, from blossom to blossom to impossible blossom, to sweet impossible blossom. ~Li-Young Lee, from “From Blossoms” from Rose
I drag the lawn chair to the center of the new lawn where you have warned it will ruin the delicate grass. From here I have a perfect view of the pink camellia, the one with rose-shaped flowers which you secretly think I have ignored. This is my camellia viewing platform I tell you, remembering signposts in Japan. … the camellia opens its flesh-colored petals with utter unself-consciousness, releasing its scent into the dangerous air. ~Linda Pastan from “Camellias” from Heroes in Disguise
In the midst of people dying in war-torn countries, as bombs drop and buildings fall to rubble –
we seek the peace of Someone who is both truly man yet very God – an impossible Blossom blooming purposely in the midst of our mess –
reminding us of Life and Light He shines in the darkness where we all dwell; this God who becomes a Man impossibly shares the sweetness of His glorious splendor, lightening our heavy load.
This gentle fragrant many-layered Bloom: given to the undeserving with joy and love without reservation without hesitation from joy to joy to joy, defeating death — our death.
This year’s Barnstorming Lenten theme is Ephesians 3:9:
…to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things…
Last Stanza: O Flow’r, whose fragrance tender With sweetness fills the air, Dispels in glorious splendor The darkness ev’rywhere; True man, yet very God, From sin and death now saves us, And shares our ev’ry load.
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…Do not be afraid, though briers and thorns are all around you… Ezekiel 2:6
Christ … is a thorn in the brain. Christ is God crying I am here, and here not only in what exalts and completes and uplifts you, but here in what appalls, offends, and degrades you, here in what activates and exacerbates all that you would call not-God. To walk through the fog of God toward the clarity of Christ is difficult because of how unlovely, how ungodly that clarity often turns out to be. ~Christian Wiman from Image Journal essay “Varieties of Quiet”
I see his blood upon the rose And in the stars the glory of his eyes, His body gleams amid eternal snows, His tears fall from the skies. I see his face in every flower; The thunder and the singing of the birds Are but his voice—and carven by his power Rocks are his written words. All pathways by his feet are worn, His strong heart stirs the ever-beating sea, His crown of thorns is twined with every thorn, His cross is every tree. ~Joseph Mary Plunkett “I See His Blood Upon the Rose”
Gardener/author Alphonse Karr in the mid-19th century wrote that even though most people grumble about roses having thorns, he was grateful that thorns have roses.
After all, there was a time when thorns were not part of our world, when we knew nothing of pain, suffering and death. In desiring more than we were already generously given, we have received more than we bargained for.
We reel under the thorns we have chosen to wander through – indeed we voluntarily elect the “thorns” of the far left and far right and suffer the consequences of our choices. Every day there is more bloodletting and battling and bullying, barricading us from all that is sweet and good and precious.
The unlovely, ungodly thorns tear us up, bloody us, make us cry out in pain and grief, deepen our fear that we may never overcome them.
Yet even the most brutal crown of thorns did not stop the loving sacrifice, can never thwart the sweetness of redemption, will not spoil the goodness, nor destroy the promise of salvation to come.
The Lord, our Rose, lightens every load.
“the only begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds; God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God; begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made” ~from the Nicene Creed
1. Maria walks amid the thorn, Kyrie eleison. Maria walks amid the thorn, Which seven years no leaf has born. Jesus and Maria.
2. What ‘neath her heart doth Mary bear? Kyrie eleison. A little child doth Mary bear, Beneath her heart He nestles there. Jesus and Maria.
3. And as the two are passing near, Kyrie eleison, Lo! roses on the thorns appear, Lo! roses on the thorns appear. Jesus and Maria.
This Flower, whose fragrance tender with sweetness fills the air, Dispels with glorious splendor the darkness everywhere; True Man, yet very God, from sin and death He saves us, And lightens every load. ~from “Lo! How a Rose”
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The serene philosophy of the pink rose is steadying. Its fragrant, delicate petals open fully and are ready to fall, without regret or disillusion, after only a day in the sun. It is so every summer. One can almost hear their pink, fragrant murmur as they settle down upon the grass: ‘Summer, summer, it will always be summer.’ ~Rachel Peden
It will always be summer if we let go in the midst of the brief brightness, when all is glorious.
No cold winds, no unending days of rain, no mildew, no iced walkways, no 18 hours of darkness, no turning brown with mold and rot.
Let us be strong and serene through all seasons rather than letting go at the height of summer.
Let us thrive steady through the hard times rather than withering at the peak of beauty.
Let us age, let us turn gray, let us wrinkle, and go bald.
It may always be summer — someday — but not yet.
Not here. Not now.
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If God is adding to our spiritual stature, unfolding the new nature within us, it is a mistake to keep twitching at the petals with our coarse fingers. We must seek to let the Creative Hand alone. ~Henry Drummond from Beautiful Thoughts
The unfolding of your words gives light; it gives understanding to the simple. Psalm 119:130
…they soon forgot what he had done and did not wait for his plan to unfold. In the desert they gave in to their craving; in the wilderness they put God to the test. Psalm 106:13-14
I look for the forms things want to come as
from what black wells of possibility, how a thing will unfold:
not the shape on paper, though that, too, but the uninterfering means on paper:
not so much looking for the shape as being available to any shape that may be summoning itself through me from the self not mine but ours. ~A. R. Ammons, from “Poetics” from A Coast of Trees
In the infinite wisdom of the Lord of all the earth, each event falls with exact precision into its proper place in the unfolding of His divine plan. Nothing, however small, however strange, occurs without His ordering, or without its particular fitness for its place in the working out of His purpose; and the end of all shall be the manifestation of His glory, and the accumulation of His praise. B.B. Warfield
What is revealed by the unfolding of our faith is the depth and width and height and completeness inside.
Unfolding means no longer staying hidden and unknown, but opening ourselves up for all to see.
We become the page upon which God writes, the palette upon which God paints, the instrument that God plays, the song that God composes.
We become beautiful unfolding, each one of us, slowly, surely, gently, in the Hands of our Creator God.
He knows how each of us began as He was there from the beginning. He remains the center of our unfolding forever.
AI image created for this post
This year’s Advent theme is from Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s sermon on the First Sunday in Advent, December 2, 1928:
The celebration of Advent is possible only to those who are troubled in soul, who know themselves to be poor and imperfect, and who look forward to something greater to come. For these, it is enough to wait in humble fear until the Holy One himself comes down to us, God in the child in the manager.
God comes.
He is, and always will be now, with us in our sin, in our suffering, and at our death. We are no longer alone. God is with us and we are no longer homeless. ~Dietrich Bonhoeffer – from Christmas Sermons
Alleluia! Alleluia!
A spotless rose is blowing, Sprung from a tender root, Of ancient seers foreshowing, Of Jesse promised fruit; Its fairest bud unfolds to light Amid the cold, cold winder, And in the dark midnight.
The rose which I am singing, Whereof Isaiah said, Is from its sweet root springing In Mary purest maid; For through our God’s great love and might,| The Blessed Babe she bare us In a cold, cold winter’s night. Alleluia!
How do I grieve what I can’t let go? It’s got a hold, it’s got a hold on me How do I mourn what I cannot know? It’s got a hold, it’s got a hold on me Jesus Christ, I don’t know what I am Am I a lost little lamb or a wolf in sheep’s clothing? Oh, my God, I don’t know what this was Am I the child of Your love or just chaos unfolding? How do I keep what I cannot find? I’m letting go, I’m letting go of You I’m letting go How do I love what I left behind? I’m letting go, I’m letting go of You I’m letting go Am I just chaos unfolding? Am I just chaos unfolding? Unknowing!
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The soul’s sap quivers. There is no earth smell Or smell of living thing. This is the spring time But not in time’s covenant. Now the hedgerow Is blanched for an hour with transitory blossom Of snow, a bloom more sudden Than that of summer, neither budding nor fading, Not in the scheme of generation. Where is the summer, the unimaginable Zero summer?
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;
And all shall be well and All manner of thing shall be well When the tongues of flames are in-folded Into the crowned knot of fire And the fire and the rose are one. ~T.S. Eliot – from “Little Gidding”from the Four Quartets
To think that this meaningless thing was ever a rose, Scentless, colourless, this! Will it ever be thus (who knows?) Thus with our bliss, If we wait till the close?
Though we care not to wait for the end, there comes the end Sooner, later, at last, Which nothing can mar, nothing mend:
An end locked fast, Bent we cannot re-bend. ~Christina Rossetti “Summer is Ended”
As a 3rd grader in November 1963, I learned the import of the U.S. flag being lowered to half mast in response to the shocking and violent death of our President. The lowering of the flag was so rare when I was growing up, it had dramatic effect on all who passed by —
our soul’s sap quivers
— something very sad had happened to our country, something or someone had tragically ended, warranting our silence, our stillness, and our grief.
For the twenty-two years since 9/11/01, our flag has spent significant time at half mast, most often due to our own home-grown mass shooting terrorism. When I see it flying low, I’m befuddled instead of contemplative, puzzling over what the latest loss might be as there are so many, sometimes all happening in the same time frame. We no longer are silenced by this gesture of honor and respect; we certainly are not stilled when personally and corporately instigating and suffering the same mistakes against humanity over and over again.
We are so bent. Will we ever be mended again?
Eliot wrote these prescient words of the Four Quartets in the midst of the WWII German bombing raids that destroyed so many people and neighborhoods. Perhaps he sensed the destruction he witnessed would not be the last time in history that evil visits the innocent, leaving them in ashes. There would be so many more losses to come, not least being the horror of 9/11/01.
There remains so much more sadness to be borne, such abundance of grief. Our world has become overwhelmed and stricken. Yet Eliot was right: we have yet to live in a Zero summer of endless hope and fruitfulness, of spiritual awakening and understanding. Where is it indeed? When will the summer Rose of beauty and fragrance rise again?
We must return, as people of faith to Eliot’s still point to which we are called on a remembrance day such as today. We must be stilled; we must be silenced. We must grieve the losses of this turning world and pray for release from the suffering we cause and we endure. Only in the asking, only in the kneeling down and pleading, are we surrounded by God’s unbounded grace.
Only then will His Rose bloom, once again recognizable.
“Zero Summer” imagines the unimaginable horror of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and yet points to epiphanic awakening that transcend human imagination at the same time. T.S. Eliot, who coined this term in his “Four Quartets,” longed for that eternal summer, birthed out of the “still point,” where imagination is met with grace and truth. ~Makoto Fujimura
“There Are No Words” written on 9/11/2001 by Kitty Donohoe
there are no words there is no song is there a balm that can heal these wounds that will last a lifetime long and when the stars have burned to dust hand in hand we still will stand because we must
in one single hour in one single day we were changed forever something taken away and there is no fire that can melt this heavy stone that can bring back the voices and the spirits of our own
all the brothers, sisters and lovers all the friends that are gone all the chairs that will be empty in the lives that will go on can we ever forgive though we never will forget can we believe in the milk of human goodness yet
we were forged in freedom we were born in liberty we came here to stop the twisted arrows cast by tyranny and we won’t bow down we are strong of heart we are a chain together that won’t be pulled apart
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White roses, tiny and old, flare among thorns by the barn door. For a hundred years under the June elm, under the gaze of seven generations, they lived briefly like this, in the month of roses, by the fields stout with corn, or with clover and timothy making thick hay, grown over, now, with milkweed, sumac, paintbrush. Old roses survive winter drifts, the melt in April, August parch, and men and women who sniffed roses in spring and called them pretty as we call them now, walking beside the barn on a day that perishes. ~Donald Hall “Old Roses” from The Selected Poems of Donald Hall.
The lily has a smooth stalk, Will never hurt your hand; But the rose upon her brier Is lady of the land.
There’s sweetness in an apple tree, And profit in the corn; But lady of all beauty Is a rose upon a thorn.
When with moss and honey She tips her bending brier, And half unfolds her glowing heart, She sets the world on fire. ~Christina Rossetti “The Rose”
We are continually overflowing toward those who preceded us, toward our origin, and toward those who seemingly come after us. It is our task to imprint this temporary, perishable earth into ourselves so deeply, so painfully and passionately, that its essence can rise again invisibly, inside us. ~Rainer Maria Rilke from The Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke
There is a rose bush that still blooms decades later on the farm where my grandparents raised their family, next to the walkway where the house once stood. Overwhelmed with weeds and blackberry vines, it still sets my heart on fire to witness its stubborn persistence, thriving through trauma, abandonment, loneliness and adversity. No one comes to water it in summer drought, and though frozen during ice-covering winters, it thrives again in spring with leaf and bud and blossom.
The vulnerable, perishable, and beloved seed will rise again, imperishable.
…let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious. 1Peter 3:4
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Sometimes hidden from me in daily custom and in trust, so that I live by you unaware as by the beating of my heart,
suddenly you flare in my sight, a wild rose looming at the edge of thicket, grace and light where yesterday was only shade,
and once again I am blessed, choosing again what I chose before. ~Wendell Berry “The Wild Rose”
Due to past harsh winter weather, we have lost a couple of our hybrid rose bushes which were grafted to rootstock when we purchased them. The durable rootstock survives when the bush does not, sending up shoots and branches to thrive and bloom, opening a wild rose blossom with a fresh loveliness all its own, even if it is not the exact color, fragrance or type rose we intended originally. It is still a blessing.
Although Wendell Berry wrote “A Wild Rose” about his wife – about a moment of illumination within a long covenantal marriage – I have experienced “choosing” again “what I chose before” in a renewal of relationship and commitment with God.
I too often settle so thoroughly into routine, oblivious to the privilege of another day of living this life. I am unaware of the miracle of my own beating heart. When the scales do lift from my eyes, I see beauty emerge from the shadows, and I am renewed.
In my own marriage, our relationship has survived over four decades through good and difficult times. Yet we are grafted to a rootstock God who never gives up.
And so we bloom from and for Him – a wild and unforgettable blessing.
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…Do not be afraid, though briers and thorns are all around you… Ezekiel 2:6
<The ground> will produce thorns and thistles for you. Genesis 3:18
Perched on the high end of its spinal stalk the brain blooms like a pink cabbage rose Peel back the blunt bone like a bud— it will be meaty to touch, the corolla folding in, folding in to echo within the sepal skull a blink of light, logarithms, a view of ships in harbor, a word just now rescued by memory, clipped arbor vitae how it smells—spiced Here God lives, burrowing among the petals, cross- pollinating. Here is Christ’s mind juiced, joined, fleshed, celled. Here is the clash, the roil, an invasion, not gentle as dew; the rose is unfurled violently until the scent explodes and detonates in the air And oh, it trembles— thousands of seeds ripen in it as it reels in the wind ~Luci Shaw “Flower head”
Christ … is a thorn in the brain. Christ is God crying I am here, and here not only in what exalts and completes and uplifts you, but here in what appalls, offends, and degrades you, here in what activates and exacerbates all that you would call not-God. To walk through the fog of God toward the clarity of Christ is difficult because of how unlovely, how ungodly that clarity often turns out to be. ~Christian Wiman from Image Journal essay “Varieties of Quiet”
It was gardener/author Alphonse Karr in the mid-19th century who wrote that even though most people grumble about roses having thorns, he was grateful that thorns have roses. After all, there was a time when thorns were not part of our world, when we knew nothing of suffering and death, but pursuing and desiring more than we were already generously given, we received a bit more than we bargained for.
We continue to reel under the thorns our choices produce — indeed every day there is more bloodletting.
So a rose was sent to adorn the thorns and even then we chose thorns to make Him bleed. Yes, a fragrant rose blooms beautiful, bleeding amid the thorns, and will to the endless day.
This year’s Barnstorming Advent theme “… the Beginning shall remind us of the End” is taken from the final lines in T.S. Eliot’s poem “The Cultivation of Christmas Trees”
1. Maria walks amid the thorn, Kyrie eleison. Maria walks amid the thorn, Which seven years no leaf has born. Jesus and Maria.
2. What ‘neath her heart doth Mary bear? Kyrie eleison. A little child doth Mary bear, Beneath her heart He nestles there. Jesus and Maria.
3. And as the two are passing near, Kyrie eleison, Lo! roses on the thorns appear, Lo! roses on the thorns appear. Jesus and Maria.
A spotless Rose is blowing, sprung from a tender root, Of ancient seers’ foreshowing of Jesse promised fruit; Its fairest bud unfolds to light Amid the cold, cold winter; and in the dark midnight.
The Rose which I am singing, whereof Isaiah said, Is from its sweet root springing in Mary, purest Maid; For, through our God’s great love and might, The blessed Babe she bare us in a cold, cold winter’s night.
This Flower, whose fragrance tender with sweetness fills the air, Dispels with glorious splendour the darkness everywhere; True Man, yet very God, From sin and death He saves us, and lightens every load.
O Jesus, by being born out of this vale of tears, Let Thy help guide us to the hall of joy In your father’s kingdom, As we praise You eternally; O God, give us that.
When Jesus Christ was yet a child He had a garden small and wild Where-in he cherished roses fair And wove them into garlands there
Now as the summertime drew nigh There came a troop of children by And seeing roses on the tree With shouts they plucked them merrily
“Do you bind roses in your hair?”
They cried in scorn to Jesus there The boy said humbly “Take I pray All but the naked thorns away”
Then of the thorns they made a crown And with rough fingers pressed it down Till on his forehead fair and young Red drops of blood like roses sprung ~Plechtcheev, melody by Tchaikovsky
The leaves are always near to falling there but never fall, and pairs of souls out walking heaven’s paths no longer feel the weight of years upon them. Safe in heaven’s calm, they take each other’s arm, the light shining through them, all joy and terror gone. But we are far from heaven here, in a garden ragged and unkept as Eden would be with the walls knocked down, the paths littered with the unswept leaves of many years, bright keepsakes for children of the Fall. The light is gold, the sun pulling the long shadow soul out of each thing, disclosing an outcome. The last roses of the year nod their frail heads, like listeners listening to all that’s said, to ask, What brought us here? What seed? What rain? What light? What forced us upward through dark earth? What made us bloom? What wind shall take us soon, sweeping the garden bare? Their voiceless voices hang there, as ours might, if we were roses, too. Their beds are blanketed with leaves, tended by an absent gardener whose life is elsewhere. It is the last of many last days. Is it enough? To rest in this moment? To turn our faces to the sun? To watch the lineaments of a world passing? To feel the metal of a black iron chair, cool and eternal, press against our skin? To apprehend a chill as clouds pass overhead, turning us to shivering shade and shadow? And then to be restored, small miracle, the sun shining brightly as before? We go on, you leading the way, a figure leaning on a cane that leaves its mark on the earth. My friend, you have led me farther than I have ever been. To a garden in autumn. To a heaven of impermanence where the final falling off is slow, a slow and radiant happening. The light is gold. And while we’re here, I think it must be heaven. ~Elizabeth Spires “In Heaven It Is Always Autumn” from Now the Green Blade Rises
I wander the autumn garden mystified at the passing of the weeks since the seed was first sown, weeds pulled, peapods picked. It could not possibly be done so soon–this patch of productivity and beauty, now wilted and brown, vines crushed to the ground, no longer fruitful.
The root cellar is filling up, the freezer is packed. The work of putting away is almost done.
So why do I go back to the now barren soil we so carefully worked, numb in the knowledge I will pick no more this season, nor feel the burst of a cherry tomato exploding in my mouth or the green freshness of a bean or peapod straight off the vine?
Because for a few fertile weeks, only a few weeks, the garden was a bit of heaven on earth, impermanent but a real taste nonetheless. We may have once mistaken our Lord for the gardener when He appeared to us radiant, suddenly unfamiliar, but it was He who offered us the care of the garden, to bring in the sheaves, to share the forever mercies in the form of daily bread grown right here and now.
When He says my name, then I will know Him. He will lead me farther than I have ever been.
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Life is a stream On which we strew Petal by petal the flower of our heart; The end lost in dream, They float past our view, We only watch their glad, early start.
Freighted with hope, Crimsoned with joy, We scatter the leaves of our opening rose; Their widening scope, Their distant employ, We never shall know. And the stream as it flows Sweeps them away, Each one is gone Ever beyond into infinite ways. We alone stay While years hurry on, The flower fared forth, though its fragrance still stays. ~Amy Lowell “Petals”
It is at the edge of a petal that love waits. ~William Carlos Williams from Spring and All (1923)
Here is the fringy edge where elements meet and realms mingle, where time and eternity spatter each other with foam. ~Annie Dillard from Holy the Firm
It is common to look for love only inside the heart of things, watching it pulse as both showpiece and show off, reverberating from deep within, yet loud enough for all the world to bear witness.
But as I advance on life’s road, I find love lying waiting at the periphery of my heart, fragile and easily torn as a petal edge – clinging to the fringe of my life, holding on through storms and trials.
This love is ever-present, protects and cherishes, fed by fine little veins which branch from the center to the tender margins of infinity.
It is on that delicate edge of forever I dwell, waiting to be fed and trembling with anticipation.
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