Today is Sunday, and here in central Connecticut the birds are singing this early morning. The air is clear and sparkling after the week’s heat, yesterday’s humidity, some Canadian wildfire haze, and the big thunder storms with vivid lightening and high winds that tried to push my car off a bridge and into the Connecticut River as we drove home from a grandchild’s birthday party last evening. I am being dramatic there. We were never in any danger, of course. There are high, strong, walls on the bridge, because we once had a functioning federal government, and still have a functioning state government, but it is still disconcerting to feel your car swerving in the wind when you are way up, and over big water.
In the short dash between driveway and front door my husband and I were drenched in the pouring rain. The plants all loved it. Luna was glad we were home. This morning the world looks and smells fresh. I am not going to look at the news until later.
I did read the gospel story that Matthew’s book tells about his call to follow Jesus, the healing of the woman who had been bleeding for years, and the raising of Jairus’ daughter. Such good stories to start a day with, so full of miracle in situations that seem set and determined to end in ignominy, shame, and grief.
Then I thought of my own callings (we all have many more than one, I think.) I thought of my gardens as one of them, and I remembered some photos I took of a few plants and spaces I tend this week. I realized that all of creation is Mystery still writing sacred script into, onto, through, around, and within this world. Into, onto, through, around, and within us all. Yes. You and I are God’s artistry and expression in matter, time, and space if we choose to be so. We always have choice, and we all, sometimes, choose poorly, yet we all still have choice in every moment we still live.
These are the photos that helped me remember the commonplace holiness that is so easily overlooked only because Mystery has saturated us and this world with it.
“God said, let the land bring forth plants…. And it was so.” - Genesis 1:11
Above: Ninebark showing off her flowers by peeking through the railing on the back steps.
Above: Nepeta growing from the soil near the low deck that has become a potted-plant garden.
Top above (I cannot seem to type into that space): Clematis and astilbe.
Directly above: Peppermint in the same potted garden.
This world is sacred; this world is holy; this world is infused with miracles waiting to be seen, to be felt, to be heard, to be sensed in every way. All we need do is open our eyes, ears, minds, and hearts to what is already here, already happening, always waiting for us to notice. It will change us, it will call us from our busyness collecting what we say is owed us, to a richness of being that is already ours if we choose it.
May we choose it. May it be so.
Courage my dears. Love one another.
