Pondering Hope in Everyday Moments
My potted roses are almost ready to bloom. In addition to the red roses, the pink, rose, gold, and coral-colored roses (not pictured) are also ready to pop. Most of them will bloom all summer, but they will never again be as beautiful as they will be in April.
I can’t wait.
All summer long I have faithfully watered my purple cloud shrubs, and all summer long they have produced only a few blossoms. Then we finally had a soaking rain a few weeks ago. I began to watch for the profusion of blossoms that always appears after a generous downpour.
This week my shrubs are wildly blooming. Gentle reader, they know the difference. They know when the water comes from God.
It’s late summer when much of the garden is looking dusty and a little brown around the edges, but the plumbago is still flowering. The tall sedums are coming into bloom, and the roses are still providing color. In every season, I manage to have something blooming in the courtyard. Later in the fall, I will pot up multi-colored violas, because they will survive an occasional crusting of snow and ice in winter.
I need flowers. They are essential for my well-being. When I was working outside of the home, I usually bought an inexpensive bunch of flowers for my desk on Mondays. They kept me going throughout the week. No matter how stressful or tedious my job became, just gazing at a bouquet of blue irises made everything better.
The beauty of a tender blossom is delicate and fleeting, but I can deal with the grief of its passing as long as there are more buds on the way.
Flowers remind me that Life is never exhausted.
Here in Southern New Mexico, it’s still winter. When I leave the house in the morning, it’s just above freezing, but by afternoon, it has warmed up to the fifties (F).
A few violets have appeared. Soon there will be a purple carpet of the little dears. And new shoots of tall sedum have appeared among the dead stalks of last year’s offering. They remind me of miniature cabbages.
Spring isn’t in the air yet, but it shimmers on the horizon.
“Listen to me, my faithful children, and blossom like a rose growing by a stream of water.
“Send out fragrance like incense, and put forth blossoms like a lily. Scatter the fragrance, and sing a hymn of praise; bless the Lord for all his works.” (Sir. 39:13-14, NRSV Catholic Ed.)
I love this passage from the book of Sirach. God seems to be saying that I can be more than I am in the present moment, more than I can desire or even imagine. This resonates in my heart, and I believe it is true. I want to be like the rose or the lily that gives off a lovely fragrance to the world. I want my life to be a hymn of praise that blesses the Lord who made me and who sustains my life.
At the same time, I am aging. I see an old woman in the mirror. I am not as strong as I used to be. There are more years behind me than before me. Yet my desire to become something more is as strong and vigorous as if I were a young woman with my whole life ahead of me.
St. Therese of Lisieux wanted to be a saint, and at the same time, she was realistic about her limitations and her situation. She didn’t think she was made of the stuff of great saints (although it turned she was), but she believed God would not have given her the desire to become a saint unless it was possible for her to achieve that goal.
I can’t compare myself to St. Therese, but I may still have something beautiful to offer to the world. I may still have some unopened petals, but in order for them to open, I need to remain near the stream of running water. For me, that stream is the mysterious life that flows from the opened side of the Savior, from the side of the one who gave his life for me so I could have life, so I could be life in myself and for others.
At the end of my life on earth, when my last petal has fallen to the ground, I hope to enter into a greater life, an eternal life with the Lord who has loved me so dearly in this earthly life of preparation. I look forward to being with him forever in that abundant life – ever fresh, ever radiant, ever blessed.
More than a couple of decades ago, a neighbor took some cuttings from some sedum plants that were potted on the White House grounds in Washington, DC. (I won’t say which neighbor took them, and I won’t say which president was in office.) My neighbor secreted the cuttings in her suitcase and planted them in pots when she came home a week later. They thrived, and they continue to thrive in her garden until this day. The plants that I grew from the cuttings she gave me are thriving as well. The ones pictured above with the light pink blossoms are descendants from my neighbor’s original cuttings. This year, I added the rust-colored variety from a local nursery. It’s nice to have plants that come into bloom late in the season.
In another part of the garden, the purple cloud bush has burst into full bloom in response to the monsoon rains.
It’s the rock roses, however, that take the prize for the cheeriest late-season bloomers.
Earlier this season, a neighbor gave me a Plumbago plant because she thought it would match our blue gate.
She was right.
My cacti are blooming just in time for Good Friday. The prickly spines remind me of the crowning of thorns and bitter suffering of Jesus, but the lovely blossoms suggest resurrection — the resurrection of Jesus and the resurrection that each of us ultimately longs for.
The Vinca (Periwinkle) vines are bursting with new life. I started the plants last summer as small cuttings from another pot. All of my other pots were occupied at the time, so I stuck the tender shoots into the pot with the cacti. I wondered how they would get along.
They seem to like each other.
A couple of days ago, a friend gave me a Rose of Sharon bush. Today, the first blossom opened. Lovely.
“Morning Glories” © 2021 by Lynn K. Miyake
Our garden has been struggling lately in the heat. My Morning Glories refused to bloom, so I decided to create a virtual garden by sketching blossoms from my photos, first in pencil, then with ink and colored pencil added. I discovered that an imaginary garden can be almost as satisfying as the real thing.
Last week I visited Father Valentine. Upon leaving, he gave me a dozen multicolored eggs from his multicolored chickens — green, blue, white, brown, and speckled — a garden of eggs. Yum!
Contemplation Garden 