Tag: Thorns

A Pathway of Flowers and Thorns

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We are to follow in His steps; and can we wish, if it were possible, to walk in a path strewed with flowers when His was strewed with thorns?
John Newton

A few years ago, our family made the necessary decision to have one of our two older dogs, just diagnosed with inoperable cancer, euthanized at home. The vet came on a blustery winter evening after his clinic appointments were done; my husband and son had worked in the cold wind preparing the grave on a little hill overlooking the barnyard. This peaceful but unmarked spot has become a pet cemetery over the years, now with three dogs and at least that many cats lying under the apple trees.

It was difficult for our family that night to think of our dog’s still warm body tucked into that cold ground. That bare patch of dirt stared at me as I walked past and our other aging dog paused there a few times, as if knowing where his old friend lay, and where within a year, he too would join him. Then a couple months later, still in the midst of wintry weather, with passing storms of hale, frozen rain and snow showers, I was astonished to see that plot of bare ground transforming.

Snowdrop flowers had appeared from nowhere. They had not been there before and I have no idea where they would have come from. Possibly disturbing the ground brought previously hidden bulbs closer to the surface. No matter how they found their way there, they were a breath of relief and promise after a dark winter. They were bright and clean and pure in the midst of otherwise unadorned mud, embraced overhead by stark bare orchard branches, their little white bells stirred by winter breezes.

These flowers became a brave and insistent symbol that life does goes on, thriving over the top of death.

So we are encouraged to follow in His steps, one slow difficult step at a time. The going is painful much of the time, strewn as life can be with thorns and tears. Yet, because He walked there first, going ahead of us, His footprints through the thorns fill with flowers, cushioning and adorning our path with unsurpassed grace and beauty.

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snowonsnowdrops

Raining Down Roses

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mayrose5161

rosedrizzle

You love the roses – so do I. I wish
The sky would rain down roses, as they rain
From off the shaken bush. Why will it not?
Then all the valley would be pink and white
And soft to tread on. They would fall as light
As feathers, smelling sweet; and it would be
Like sleeping and like waking, all at once!
~George Eliot

 

wwumainrose2

rosedrizzle2

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.

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 more than we bargained for.

We continue to reel under the thorns our choices produce — every day there is more bloodletting.

So a Rose was sent to adorn the thorns. We chose thorns to make Him bleed and still do to this day.

A fragrant rose blooms beautiful,
bleeding amid the thorns,
raining down as we sleep and wake,
and will to the endless day.

 

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wwupristine

Abandon entouré d’abandon, tendresse touchant aux tendresses…
C’est ton intérieur qui sans cesse se caresse, dirait-on;
se caresse en soi-même, par son propre reflet éclairé.
Ainsi tu inventes le thème du Narcisse exaucé.
~Rainer Maria Rilke “Dirait-on” from his French Poetry collection ‘Les chansons de la rose’

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wwumainrose

God Among Us: Roses on the Thorns

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roseunfurl

<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”
 ____________________
 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 and still do to this day.
Yes, a fragrant rose blooms beautiful, bleeding amid the thorns, and will to the endless day.

rosethorn

Lo, how a Rose e’er blooming from tender stem hath sprung!
Of Jesse’s lineage coming, as men of old have sung.
It came, a floweret bright, amid the cold of winter,
When half spent was the night.

Isaiah ’twas foretold it, the Rose I have in mind;
With Mary we behold it, the virgin mother kind.
To show God’s love aright, she bore to men a Savior,
When half spent was the night.

The shepherds heard the story proclaimed by angels bright,
How Christ, the Lord of glory was born on earth this night.
To Bethlehem they sped and in the manger found Him,
As angel heralds said.

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.

O Savior, Child of Mary, who felt our human woe,
O Savior, King of glory, who dost our weakness know;
Bring us at length we pray, to the bright courts of Heaven,
And to the endless day!

 

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.

 

 

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

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thistledown824142

Worn Out Gloves

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farmglovesAt our annual  Wiser Lake Chapel Thanksgiving service last night, we were asked to participate by bringing a token of something we are thankful for.  This is what I brought.

This is what my farm work gloves look like after a year of service.  They keep me from blistering while forking innumerable loads of smelly manure into wheelbarrows, but also help me unkink frozen hoses, tear away blackberry vines from fencing, pull thistle from the field and heavy hay bales from the haymow.  Over the years, I’ve gone through several dozen gloves, which have protected my hands as I’ve cleaned and bandaged deep wounds on legs and hooves, pulled on foals during the hard contractions of difficult births, held the head of dying animals as they sleep one final time.

Without my work gloves over the years, my hands would look very much like these do, full of rips and holes from the thorns and barbs of the world, sustaining scratches, callouses and blisters from the hard work of life.

But they don’t.
Thanks to these gloves, I’m presentable for my “day” work as a doctor where I don a different set of gloves many times a day.

But the gloves don’t tell the whole story of my gratitude.

I’m thankful to a Creator God who doesn’t need to wear gloves when He goes to work in our world.
Who gathers us up even when we are dirty, smelly, and unworthy.
Who eases us into this life when we are vulnerable and weak,
and carries us gently home as we leave this world, weak and vulnerable.
Who holds us as we bleed from self and other-inflicted wounds.
Who won’t let us go, even when we fight back, or try not to pay attention, or care who He is.

And who came to us
with hands like ours~
tender, beautiful, easy to wound hands
that bled
because He didn’t need to wear gloves~~His love made evident
to us all.

 

Listening to Lent — Thorn Cursed Ground

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fieldfog

Seems the sorrow untold, as you look down the road
At the clamoring crowd drawing near
Feel the heat of the day, as you look down the way
Hear the shouts of Hosanna the King

Chorus
Oh, daughter of Zion your time’s drawing near
Don’t forsake Him, oh don’t pass it by
On the foal of a donkey as the prophets had said
Passing by you, He rides on to die

Come now little foal, though you’re not very old
Come and bear your first burden bravely
Walk so softly upon all the coats and the palms
Bare the One on your back oh so gently

Midst the shouting so loud and the joy of the crowd
There is One who is riding in silence
For He knows the ones here will be fleeing in fear
When their shepherd is taken away

Soon the thorn cursed ground will bring forth a crown
And this Jesus will seem to be beaten
But He’ll conquer alone both the shroud and the stone
And the prophesies will be completed
On the foal of a donkey as the prophets had said
Passing by you He rides on to die
~Michael Card

Facing ahead to
a week of seeing friends struggling,
a week facing my own fears of vulnerability,
a week where thorns seem more prevalent than blossoms~~

I must remember what He did that week long ago,
this week now,
this week here,
to conquer the shroud and the stone
makes all the difference
for us all.

This week ends our living for self only to die,
and begins our dying to self in order to live.

Listening to Lent — For Us

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berrysprout

1 O love, how deep, how broad, how high,
beyond all thought and fantasy,
that God, the Son of God, should take
our mortal form for mortals’ sake.

2 For us baptized, for us he bore
his holy fast and hungered sore;
for us temptations sharp he knew,
for us, the tempter overthrew.

3 For us by wickedness betrayed,
for us, in crown of thorns arrayed,
he bore the shameful cross and death;
for us gave up his dying breath.

4 For us he rose from death again;
for us he went on high to reign;
for us he sent the Spirit here
to guide, to strengthen, and to cheer.

5 All glory to our Lord and God,
for love so deep, so high, so broad:
the Trinity whom we adore
forever and forevermore.
~Thomas Kempis

 

For us, the thorns borne
For us, the promise of new life
For us, a love unimaginable.

 

Terrible with Raisins

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This wasn’t just plain terrible,
this was fancy terrible.
This was terrible with raisins in it.
~Dorothy Parker

More and more of my clinic time is devoted to evaluation and treatment of depression and anxiety rather than sore throats, coughs, UTIs and sprains/strains.  An outbreak of overwhelming misery is climbing to epidemic proportions in our society.  A majority of the patients who are coming in for mental health assessment are at the point where their symptoms are interfering with nearly every aspect of their daily activities and they can no longer cope.  Their relationships are disintegrating, their work/school responsibilities are suffering, they are alarmingly self-medicating with alcohol, marijuana and pornography or whatever seems to give momentary relief.   Suicidal ideation has become common, almost normative, certainly no longer rare.

Things seem terrible.  And not just plain terrible.  First-world-problem-terrible with raisins in it.

We have lost all perspective about terrible.

Terrible is what happened to the Philippine people in the midst of the most horrific typhoon this month –losing everything from their lives to shelter to any means to stay warm, fed and secure, much less find medical care.
Terrible is what happens in numerous countries where political oppression sends refugees across hundreds of miles and borders to seek asylum in foreign lands.
Terrible is what happens when hundreds of thousands are dying from AIDs,  leaving behind their infected orphans to fend for themselves and care for each other.
Terrible is trafficking of human beings for power, gratification and money.

There is plenty of just plain terrible and most of us have no clue what it feels like.  We are so absorbed in our own scratches from the ubiquitous thorns of life, grousing about the raisins that pop up in our own version of terrible,  oblivious to the relative comfort with which we are graced daily compared to most of the world’s population.

Sometimes I think the best treatment for anxiety and depression has little to do with correcting brain chemistry or getting to the right cognitive behavioral insights to beat back negative thoughts, but rather to spend a year digging wells and latrines for those who have never used one.   It is spending hours caring for the detoxing or the dying to see what misery really looks like.  It is understanding how the fight for basic survival after an earthquake, a hurricane, a typhoon, a flood, a tsunami,  makes life even more precious, rather than thrown away as if it is something you can simply upgrade or exchange for a new version.

Maybe, just maybe, when we reach in deeply, even sustaining the scars that come with everyday living, we can look past the thorns to the fruit.  We may bleed getting to it.  Maybe then the raisins don’t seem quite so terrible after all.

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The Path Between the Thorns

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ohdeer
on the WWU campus yesterday

I love the way the doe knows how to go
through the tall brambles: She ambles
her hips first to one side,
then another; tosses her nose high
to sniff the trails of air; and
proffers only a passing glance to
the chickadee on his slanted
branch. She knows the way;
she knows the turn of a hoof print
here, to the right of the wild rose brier;
there, past the tip of the raspberry twig;
she knows the sun even before
his fine arced dome appears
on the eastern horizon, and
she goes that way,
into the still of the dew
into the hills of the morning
in through that path between the thorns
that is so hard for us to see.
~Pat Campbell Carlson “Deer Wisdom”

The deer on our university campus stroll about like students themselves; they taste this, nibble that, try things out to see how they like it.   It is rare for a cougar to stray down from the hills to campus so the deer find themselves unchallenged as long as they stay off the asphalt competing with four wheeled predators.  The campus is a refuge from the world, an idyllic place to hang out, to see and be seen, just like students.

On our farm, they are not so unconcerned.  Life is very uncertain;  one never knows who can be trusted.  Thorns define the pathways and to be safe, a deer must be willingly swallowed by the thorns.  When I approach, she dives into an indiscernible opening in the brushy undergrowth and disappears, leaving no trace she was ever there.  Yet I know she is, peering out from her camouflaged sanctuary, waiting for her moment, undisturbed, in the sun.

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dawn7254

Light Amid the Thorns

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sunsetthorn

The world is not respectable; it is mortal, tormented, confused, deluded forever; but it is shot through with beauty, with love, with glints of courage and laughter; and in these, the spirit blooms timidly, and struggles to the light amid the thorns.
~George Santayana

Our hilltop farm is named BriarCroft for good reason — our unintentional crop that flourishes each year is thorny.   We battle them with brush hogs, mowers and loppers, even burning them to the roots when necessary.  Yet the vines win this battle when we divert our attention elsewhere, even for just a few weeks.

Good thing there is light and love that glints through the thorns to encourage us when we are torn and hurting.  There will be a time when the power of the spirit will overwhelm and overcome the plethora of thorns.  There will come a day when the vines will yield fruit to feed us rather than wounds to bleed us.

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Realm of Briar

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photo by Josh Scholten

Far from Love the Heavenly Father 
Leads the Chosen Child, 
Oftener through Realm of Briar 
Than the Meadow mild.

~Emily Dickinson

I know folks being dragged through the realm of briar right now.  They are dealing with life-threatening disease, disintegration of relationships, significant mental health challenges or the results of random tragedy.  The cruelty of so much earthly suffering cannot be easily explained nor dismissed.  It feels “far from love” to be chosen to walk through a place that rips and tears away at one’s very flesh and spirit.  Yet many of us are chosen to experience such trials rather than allowed to live life in the mild meadow.

The only consolation is that we are not alone on this path of pain.  The Chosen Child, sent to walk alongside us through the realm of briar,  bleeds with us, bleeds because of us, bleeds for us, bleeds when we have nothing left, ultimately bleeds so we no longer have to.

To be everlastingly filled, we must first be emptied.

To find our forever home, we must admit we have lost our way and need rescue.

Accompanied through the realm of briar, we suffer wounds that only Love can heal.