Fullness of Time

It is so glorious a day that I have spent most of my Sunday outdoors and, as it is so often, time is on my mind...its passing and its effect on each of us as we live out our lives. This morning I took a walk before going to church and noted once again of the change of season as we head into late summer. It is the time of year when a reflective naturalist notices a familiar annual milestone...a different feel to the air and light...different scents, sights and sounds that whisper that the summer, though still going strong, will not last forever. The goldenrod has not yet come into bloom but its fragrance drifts through the meadows and soon its color will join that of ironweed, Queen Anne's lace and Joe-Pye weed, creating a late-summer palette of bright yellows, pinks and purples. Today the geese were flying, not yet in migration but in family groupings of parents and fledglings now old enough to take to the air. Though we have not heard much from them for the last few months, their honking calls will be a common commotion now that the young are airborne. The grackles have already started their flocking behavior, as have the barn and tree swallows and today I noticed the same of robins as I walked. And happily the cricket and katydid chorus has begun once again

While thinking about these predictors of waning summer I began to draw some parallels between the natural world's rhythms and those of my own life. This time of year is not as exhilarating as spring, not filled with the associated newness of life and promise of what is yet to come. And yet, it is a richer, fuller time. A time when when the fields are filled with insects and ripening seeds that will sustain the young of many species who are maturing past infancy. For many wild creatures it is a time of waiting and preparation for what will come next, be it migration or hibernation, or just coping with the leanness of winter. For the most part, the birds are past their nesting seasons and are finishing up their child rearing duties, frogs and salamanders have long since left their young to fend for themselves and many of the first year mammals will be on their own come fall. It is a time of transition for the natural world and this year I am finding the same to be true for myself as well.

I have loved being a mother and raising and sharing in the homeschooling of my children. I have found meaning and joy in watching them grow into the adults they have become and in knowing that God holds them closely. Now, however, I am entering into a season uncharted in my experience and I wonder about where it will lead. I am now past childbearing but not past nurturing and caretaking. I am past the sense of immortality of youth but because I understand that my time on earth is finite I want to live my life intentionally. As with the late summer season I recognize a richness to this time and the potential to sustain the life of others in a way that my earlier years did not allow for.

There is a verse in Philippians that has echoed in my mind for as long as I have known God, "...for it is God who works within you both to will and to work for His good pleasure." My prayer has become that He will lead me into the future in keeping with His good pleasure and that He will direct me towards what I am to be and to pursue in the years that lie ahead. Right now, at this time of transition, praying is all I know to do. I have every expectation that, just as the fields are being readied to feed those who will depend upon them, I am being prepared for whatever God's good pleasure will lead me to .

There and Back Again

Well, after such a long time away from writing I have decided to give it another try. Writing these blogs as so many of us do strikes me as strange sometimes. Why exactly do we do it? Do we hope to connect with people we don't know? Or with people we do? In the past I have hoped that something I have written may have encouraged or challenged another but perhaps the truth is that I just like the writing process itself. In any case, I'm going to give it another try whether anyone ever reads it or not.

Last Friday I had a wonderful day traveling with my son to my old alma mater, West Virginia University. He was there to work with a research team on something I only have the vaguest understanding of and I was there to share the day with him and to walk the trails of the college arboretum as I used to do as a student. This arboretum was the beginning of my relationship with wild plants and animals, though I was at the school to study horticulture. I went to classes about greenhouse growing, crop science, entomology and soils but my best and longest lasting education came from the well worn paths winding through the arboretum and I traveled them in all seasons at all times of the day and evening. The slopes in spring were covered with trillium, Virginia bluebells, dutchman's breeches and all the other spring ephemerals we associate with the beauty of the woodlands. And the fall colors were almost indescribably beautiful and I have to admit that sometimes their invitation was stronger than my inclination to attend class. Oh, but how I learned on those trails and had implanted a lifelong love of the woods.

While meandering the trails on Friday, wildflower field guide in hand, I pondered the unlikely scenario in which I was participating that day. As I wandered and studied the flowers some thirty years ago I could never have imagined that someday I would return with my grown son, a son with whom I share a special bond and joy. I could not have imagined my life as it is today or what all the ensuing years would bring me, happy and sad, easy and hard. I did not then know how deeply I would someday love my children or how my relationship with God would be tried and tested and found true. I did not know of the mistakes I had yet to make or the blessings that would be bestowed upon me. If I had been granted a glimpse into the future, would I have believed what lay ahead?

I don't know, as none of us do, how much time I have left to live upon this earth. I like to think I have learned some lessons over time, but sometimes I wonder. Am I any better at trusting God for what is yet to come? Do I any more easily hand over worries and fears than I did when I first walked those trails? Am I quicker to thank Him for the wonders or turn to Him in the uncertainties? I hope so. Last Friday, I was filled with thanksgiving for what my life has been and for the twists and turns that had brought me back to stand in a place that I had remembered and loved for so long. And I was filled with amazement that unbeknownst to me, as I went about simply living my day to day life year after year, I was actually being led back to something that had been so important to me but that I was sure I had lost.

I came away from West Virginia that day appreciating the "now" of life and appreciating what seems like mystery to us, but is sure knowledge to God. May I remember the lessons I learned in the mountains now that I am back home again, for as much as I love and sometimes long for what I left, the present calls to me now and carries its own promise of what is and is yet to come.

The Secret Garden and the Desires of My Heart

It has been some time since I have posted anything of significance and the topic of this post has to do with why that has been so. For the last couple of months I have been doing a lot of thinking and praying about my role in life and in the Kingdom. I have been wondering and praying yet again about how to live in a way that best honors God within the framework of who I am and the gifts I have been given. I was back to thinking that perhaps my gifts in listening and encouraging should be given more priority in the paths I choose in serving people. I have mused about and considered ministries of compassion and spiritual direction and have explored what is needed for each and for a while I thought I was on to what might be a good idea. A week or so ago I chatted with the Pastor of Congregational Care at my church about his role and what it involves, thinking that I might gain a better sense of my direction from what he shared. And as it turned out, I did. It just wasn't the direction and confirmation I was expecting.

During the course of that discussion the topic turned to gardens and I mentioned that I was going to be taking care of the small enclosed open-air garden that was built into the addition of the church. And as soon as I said the words, I recognized the enthusiastic anticipation of getting to work on a neglected garden and turning it into something wonderful. I was hoping to create something beautiful for Easter morning in spite of the nighttime temperatures being in the mid-20s. As the week before Easter passed I had many other things to attend to, including presenting a program about gardening with native plants for the Lancaster County Bird Club and I was more busy than I had been in a while. And yet, even in the busyness my mind returned over and over to the garden at church and wondering about what I could put in that would bring joy to those who happened to pass by and notice. I went to a nearby garden center and saw that they had their bulb flowers and pansies outside where they had hardened off to the temperatures and I knew what I was going to do. I went home and got the pots I had planned on using out of the shed, scrubbed them in the bathtub, took them back to the garden center and after a good deal of searching and figuring, bought the needed plants. That was on Thursday and I knew that I wouldn't be able to do the planting until the evening before Easter because of everything else I needed to do on Friday and Saturday. Finally late on Saturday afternoon I was home again and began poting up my flowers.

It was as I was beginning to lay out the aforementioned pots, soil, water and plants that I realized just how much I had been looking forward to starting in on this very job of planting and creating what my mind's eye had envisioned. I worked hurriedly, knowing that I would have only a few hours of daylight left and that I would probably need them all. It was after six o'clock when I finally loaded up the car with the planted pots and headed over to church, hoping against hope that there wouldn't be many people around. I longed for an undisturbed time of quiet and peace, as I had more on my mind than just the flowers and the garden and I was happily rewarded with that which I sought. I unlocked the door into the garden, and spent the next hour raking leaves, mulching beds and setting out pots of bright yellow tulips and purple and yellow pansies and hyacinths. And as dusk fell I sat in the midst of "my" finished garden,breathing in its fragrance and thanking God for His mercies and His grace. As I left to head home I remembered the movie "The Secret Garden" and wonderingly realized that, as surprising as it still seemed, I had been given my own secret garden...a neglected and sleeping spot but one filled with promise and potential...and just like in the movie, it involved a locked door and a special key. I have wished for a secret garden ever since seeing the movie for the first time but supposed that, since I was an adult, it wasn't likely to ever really happen.

And so, no matter how many people might have been blessed with the garden's beauty on Easter morning, I was more so. I have carried a sadness these last few days that is deep and about which I'll say no more except to say that I am once again acutely aware of how desperately I need a Saviour. As I sat there in the garden, I thankfully realized that God had already known my need and given me an unexpected task that would bring more solace than anything I could have conceived on my own. He pointed me towards that needy garden and to making it into something beautiful...just like He does with our lives when we let him. The words of the Scripture passage came to mind as I was driving home..."Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart." Any who read this blog already know how much tending the earth means to me. To once again have God's blessing and affirmation of that desire means even more.

February Doldrums

So, this frozen month of February is almost over, and though I don't want to sound like I take my life or time I am allowed to live it for granted, I have to say that I am not going to miss February when it is gone. As for many people, this past month is always one of the harder months of the year for me, and isn't one that insprires too many thoughts to write in one's blog.

But it surely hasn't been a lifeless month by any means. One only need know where to look to see signs of winter's ending and spring's promise. This month our yard has been visited numerous times by bluebirds and robins, partaking of the winterberry berries and crabapple fruits. We have had both black-capped and Carolina chickadees continually, more than in any other year I can remember, and visits by white-breasted nuthatches, titmice and downy woodpeckers almost daily. Not bad for a yard that had no trees when we moved here 18 years ago.

Today again the yard was filled with robins busy in the crabapple trees and on the ground as well and one of the mockingbirds was back. The most unusual part of the day was when I heard a ruckus outside that I didn't recognize and found two red-bellied woodpeckers either harassing each other or thinking about pairing up and I couldn't tell which it was. Kind of like humans sometimes. Perhaps they'll be back since they can find suet, peanuts and sunflower seeds readily available here.

Well, I thought that if I sat here and wrote a bit and posted something... anything... it would bring back to mind why I like writing and sharing these bits of adventure. If you stop back in in a few days, I will hope to have something more reflective or meaningful to say. Not that life is not full of meaning and reflection during the winter months. It is just that I have more trouble settling my mind to see it then. It is time to sharpen my vision.

Simplicity

As I am writing on this cold, frozen morning, there is a robin calling just outside my window as it forages through the crabapple trees and I am hoping that the bluebirds will stop in again today as they make their rounds searching for food. A little farther off in the yard a Carolina wren is singing, seemingly unintimidated by the temperatures as it goes about poking its bill into old tree trunks and branches piled up here and there. There is a bit of frenzy in the robin's call and movements, as if it knows that its survival is in question and that the diminishing number of berries our yard offers are its hedge against succumbing to the cold. And there is no question that though the yard offered an abundance of food a month ago, its provisions are being consumed at a rapid rate these days. Some years the small crabapple out the kitchen window carries its heavy fruit crop into the early spring but this year it will soon be picked clean. The garden beds, however, are still full of aster and goldenrod stalks, and coneflower and black-eye Susan seedheads provide an ongoing buffet for juncos, various sparrows, and cardinals. The river birch and sweetgum trees have been providing seeds for chickadees of late and the decaying trunks of old Christmas trees hide grubs and insects for titmice, nuthatches and woodpeckers. Suffice to say that the yard is almost never empty or still, save for the occasional incursion of a hungry Cooper's hawk, bringing all visible avian activity to an immediate and silent halt.


I have just finished reading a piece by a friend of mine concerning decisions he and his wife have made in obedience to God about their lifestyle. The essay was about their choice to follow God's direction to live more simply than in days past and about the implications of that choice for their life of ministry and service. There is challenge in his words and also affirmation for choices I have made over the years. Along these lines, something I have pondered for as long as I have lived in this house has had to do with the resources that I have put into making our home landscape into the sanctuary it is for the wild creatures with whom we share this place. As anyone who loves plants and gardening knows, gardeners can be just as tempted to spend on "just one more" as can any connoisseur of technological or entertainment gadgetry. Our indulgences just happen to run towards that which is living matter. I don't delude myself into thinking that buying a living entity makes that purchase somehow exempt from examination... well, I try not to anyway. Gardeners can fall into the trap of exalting beauty or their own sense of aesthetics, the same as anyone else, and can be just as prone to overspending to achieve their botanical goals.

But that is not the type of gardening I am thinking of as I sit and reflect here this morning and my hope is that my efforts are for a higher good than simply self-gratification. Gardening simply for visual beauty can be almost as devoid of sustenance for wild things as can a neighborhood with nothing planted. The difference is in what we plant and why. This morning as I looked out and heard the robin I was reminded of Jesus words "Consider the birds of the air. They neither sow nor reap, yet your Heavenly Father feeds them." And though we may like to quote that verse as evidence of God's intent to provide, we humans have removed almost all of what God had originally put in place to do the feeding of His creatures. We have, by and large, taken over the land and emptied it of the provisions that God originally intended to sustain the life that used to be here. We have fallen prey to a cultural model of living that elevates manicured lawn and barren landscapes over the life of pollinators, butterflies and the birds whom God placed here before we ever arrived on the scene.

And so I come back to my simplicity question as it pertains to gardening. I have come to a sense of peace in the answers because the choices and efforts I make, and yes, the money I spend are done so with life in mind. I live in the joyful awareness that simply by planting what will bring food and shelter for the birds of winter or the pollinators of summer I am cooperating with God, the Creator and Sustainer of all things. When I am awakened in the spring by the melodies of migrant songbirds in our trees, or when I turn into our driveway in August and am overwhelmed by the calls of singing insects, or now in the dead of winter when bluebirds and robins are finding bits of nourishment to see them through the winter I am exceedingly thankful for the invitation God has given to become partners with Him in caring for the world. The same invitation is open and extended to each of us. It is my fervent hope that others will accept and embark upon the adventure of partnering with Him in caring for the Creation. And it is my hope that we might always be mindful that we have been set amidst Creation not as kings but as caretakers, not solely for our own pleasure but for the good of all.

Juxtaposition

In the bleak midwinter
Frosty winds made moan
Earth stood hard as iron
Water like a stone.

The seasonal, penetrating cold has returned and looking out on the yard recently I was surprised to see two bluebirds dropping into the winterberry bushes and eating the berries. I see them on my walks and know that they stay the winter, living on the various berries they find and what insects they can glean from the fields but I have not seem them visit my yard in January up till now. Just behind them was a red-bellied woodpecker eating from the suet cake and peanut feeder and I was struck by the contrasts in the two bird species... one larger and one smaller, one rather drab and one vibrant blue, one eating from a man-made food source and one from what the bushes naturally provide. Both were welcomed with what sustenance my yard could offer and both stayed a while and then moved on, leaving only memories behind.

The stanza above is from of one of my favorite Christmas carols, though the images portrayed hit closer to home during these couple of months after Christmas. The earth is hard and frozen right now and it takes all the imagination I can muster to believe that anything will ever spring from it again. And yet even as I look out on the barren landscape I am working on a program about gardening with native plants that includes numerous photographs of gardens ablaze with color. Many of the slides are of my own yard and I am again surprised at what the earth holds beneath its now-unyielding surface. Today snow is in the forecast and to those not botanically minded its coming might seem to forestall the promise of spring's reblooming. To gardeners, however, snow is welcomed as an insulating blanket, protecting the life that lies in waiting until the time is right to emerge once again.

I sometimes think about seasons of grief and anguish in the same way. The times that seem so hopeless and forlorn can hide away in their depths the seeds of new vision and renewed purpose. Though those seeds seem deeply buried, when the time becomes right and conditions become favorable they can stretch out and grow into something unexpectedly glorious if we give them a chance. I was reminded of this contrast during a recent discussion about the relationship between grief and bitterness... an inverse relationship, I should add. I have become convinced that the more genuinely and the more deeply we allow ourselves to grieve our losses and our pain, the more likely we are to come through them with hearts still soft and spirits free from bitterness. It is into such hearts that peace returns and wholeness is restored. If we allow Him, God will come to us in our grief as we admit that we have no control over events or hurts that so affect our lives. Bitterness, on the other hand, pushes God away. It is our vain attempt to deny how seriously we have been wounded and in its determination to protect us from being in such a fearful position ever again, it poisons and imprisons us.

The choice of how we respond to pain is ours alone to make. And in the choosing, unbeknownst to us, we turn towards life in its fullness or a slow erosion of the spirit. Grieving causes us to be confronted with just how vulnerable we really are in this world and yet, in a mysterious juxtaposition, it can bring the freedom to become who we have been created to be. Grieving, and its companion Forgiveness, are the only remedy to a life of bitterness and hardness of heart. Together they create the fertile soil that nourishes our soul and the beauty that lies within us, waiting to be reborn. May God, in His mercy, give us the courage to approach our pain with honesty and humility and thereby to realize new life.

Nymphs, Dryads and Taking Down the Christmas Tree

My mind is full of whimsy today and touched with a little sadness. Today is the 12th day of Christmas and, as such, the day I deemed appropriate to take down our Christmas tree. It was a dear, lovely, somewhat misshapen Frazier fir and truth be told, I didn't want to take it down at all. I liked our tree. Most years I am more than ready to restore the living room to its pre-holiday state by this time, but this year I would have been happy to have incorporated our tree into the ongoing living room decor. I would like to have a tree growing in our living room.

My favorite pastimes as a child involved trees in some form or another. I played house under low hanging branches, stringing hammocks to cradle my sleeping baby dolls. Stumps became dining tables, rocks became chairs and pine needles, dried leaves and bark became ingredients for soup and tasty desserts. Good books were best read in the sturdy branches of our crabapple tree with its trunk serving as a backrest. On rainy days my second favorite place to read was sitting under our oak, book in one hand and umbrella in the other. (My dad, who seemed to care what the neighbors thought of us, discouraged such behavior, however.) Favorite stories from my childhood often involved trees in one form or another. Christopher Robin, Piglet and Owl were lucky enough to live in trees, as were the Swiss Family Robinson members and Sam Gribley in My Side of the Mountain. Though I thoroughly enjoyed sharing life with those characters while I was reading, I was always disappointed when it came time to put the book down and face the fact that, in my neighborhood at least, there were no trees left with hollow trunks large enough to serve as my home. I felt cheated and as though the life I had been meant to live had somehow escaped me.

I can still remember the first time I watched the movie Fantasia and saw on the screen the very life I felt like I had missed. I don't remember very clearly now but the scenes that leaped out at me were of Greek mythology and depicted the wonderful, beautiful nymphs and dryads of the trees and forests...twirling, dancing, and singing they made their way through the woodlands and meadows, tree spirits whose only responsibility in life was to be the trees' protectors and care takers. Ahhh.. what a noble and joyous calling. Such beings have turned up in other literature too, of course. In Narnia, at least during the good times, the forests danced with the movement of the dryads and in Middle Earth merry Goldberry was a similar caretaker, though her reign seemed to encompass all living flora and not just the woodlands. (I have not come to grips with the ponderous and solemn Ents, however, though perhaps they became that way because their Entwives had forsaken them.)

And now I am grown and still, perhaps foolishly, miss the world the way it never was, or perhaps, was for only a short time in the very beginning. I know very are few who share this kinship with the trees, though there are some. One friend I recently talked with mentioned that his family had just had part of a birch tree break through their living room window during a recent ice storm and at the end of the telling said, "I'd still rather live under the trees." His words reminded me of my imaginings as a child and I found myself agreeing.

All of which brings me back to the taking down of our Christmas tree and placing it outside for the birds to shelter in during the rest of the winter. Amidst the whimsy of the thinking about wood spirits and talking animals, I find myself wondering about how I am to live out this kinship with the created earth in my day to day life. I have to believe that this bent, be it a gift or a hindrance, is for a purpose... for more than just to serve myself and my wishes for how I'd like life to be. For the time being and in the absence of other direction, I delight in planting and nurturing my gardens and the young saplings growing on our property. And I delight in the same in the gardens of others I care for. Who knows? Perhaps it is possible that I am actually a nymph after all :).