Awake
Long enough have you dream'd contemptible
dreams,
Now I wash the gum from your eye
You must habit yourself to the dazzle of the
light and of
Every moment of your life. Walt
Whitman
Every blade of grass has its angel that
bends over it and whispers grow, grow,
grow. The Talmud
If there is a sin against life, it
consists perhaps not so much in despairing of
life as in hoping for another life and in
eluding the implacable grandeur of this life.
Albert Camus
The roshi asks slowly, "Where is the gardener?"
"The gardener," the monks wonder aloud. "He is just a simple man who tends the plants, and he is not even ordained."
"Yes," the roshi replies. "But he is the only one awake."
My to-do list for the coming week is long, with enough expectations to choke a horse. And there are a few unhappy people waiting for my attention to matters from last week's list. I've been obsessing about it, making sure to portend the worst scenarios, which is another way of saying that I've found every way conceivable way to feel-sorry-for-myself, and avoid living right now.
When it gets this stressful, I put on my Willie and Waylon CD and sing about "starting my life over on the seashores of Old Mexico." That seems to calm me down.
While I'm singing, I notice the vase sitting on my cadenza, filled with a bouquet of red roses, a gift from a friend. They are hybrid-tea-roses (the kind you buy at every flower stand; for Valentine's Day, or when you know you screwed up and need to act contrite). The roses are pristine and without blemish. And they're starting to irritate me.
I remember myself (twenty years ago) as a young gardener (with dozens of rose bushes), tending toward the fastidious and suffocating. I abhorred any sign of weakness or chaos or disarray. At the sign of any black spots on my roses, I roamed the garden armed like an engineer at nuclear waste site, wading through the rose beds, spraying, coating, doing battle, and kicking butt. All very Ramboesque. I sprayed, therefore I was a gardener. Back then; I was mesmerized and dazzled by perfection, things without blemish.
Hybrid tea roses, I learned with time, turned out to be far more show than substance. But I was young, full of energy, naïve and susceptible to high-maintenance women.
May Sarton warned that gardening is not for the young, because we are too impatient and self-absorbed.
It's as if we are "thinking" about living, rather than just living.
And in our obsession with certitude (and perfection), we miss the moment.
Like the young man at his job interview.
Boss, "What is 2 times 2?"
Interviewee, "What do you want it to be sir?"
Yesterday, I presided at a funeral. His family and friends loved the man we memorialized, and the eulogies were heartfelt. Even so, one began, "These are the things I would have said if he were still here."
I don't ever want to say that.
There are tragedies in life. But dying young isn't one of them. Although I've come to believe that waiting for a perfect garden may well be.
So today, I spent the day, in my very imperfect garden. I see its spaces and mistakes and weeds. And then, the beguiling fragments of perfection assuage my discomfort. The Japanese iris with falls cut from great bolts of silk, Persian purple. And I am quite literally struck dumb, and oddly content in the sadness that is the ephemeral nature of a flower. In this moment, I am awake, even in the imperfection.
It hit me today that anything worth doing is worth doing badly. Especially if you are wholehearted.
So. I cut a whole armload-sized-bouquet of the Old Garden Rose: Constance Spry. She covers one of our arbors, her blooms wanton and gratuitous. She is the perfect metaphor for God's Grace, everything that she is, and has, is poured out into this moment, without reserve, and given freely.
Old Garden Roses are not the unspoiled and faultless blooms of the store-bought rose. No, they are untidy, orbed sheaves of intoxicatingly-perfumed-petals, of cinnamon and musk and grandmother's kitchen.
These Old Garden Roses carry themselves with the air of self-confidence that ennobles a full-bodied and sensual middle-aged woman. For their power is not in their need to tease.
As a rose gardener, you'll be glad to know that I've retired my spray paraphernalia and chemical regimen. Black spot and powdery mildew still rear their nettlesome heads. So be it. I'm learning to accept that this garden is for plants and peace, not warfare and worry.
The opposite of depression is delight, being spontaneously surprised by the goodness and beauty of living. Ronald Rolheiser
Dear God, I think about you sometimes even when I'm not praying. Elliot (Children's Letters to God)
The One who came still comes and the One who spoke still speaks--Go after a life of love as if your life depended on it--because it does.
First Book of Corinthians
Reverence
The air vibrated
with the sound of cicadas
on those hot Missouri nights after sundown
when the grown-ups gathered on the wide back lawn,
sank into their slung-back canvas chairs
tall glasses of iced tea beading in the heat
and we sisters chased fireflies
reaching for them in the dark
admiring their compact black bodies
their orange stripes and seeking antennas
as they crawled to our fingertips
and clicked open into the night air.
In all the days and years that have followed,
I don't know that I've ever experienced
that same utter certainty of the goodness of life
that was as palpable
as the sound of the cicadas on those nights:
my sisters running around with me in the dark,
the murmur of the grown-ups' voices,
the way reverence mixes with amazement
to see such a small body
emit so much light.
Julie Cadwallader-Staub
(Friends Journal. ©Religious Society of Friends)
Loving God we offer you
Every flower that ever grew
Every bird that ever flew
Every wind that ever blew
Every thunder rolling
Every Church bell tolling
Every leaf and sod
Every wave that ever moved
Every heart that ever loved
Every river dashing
Every cloud that swept o'er the skies
Every human joy and woe
Watch over us today as we strive to understand your word of love
We ask this through Christ our Lord
Amen
This week Sabbath Moment friend Luisa sent this wonderful link for SimpleTruths.com, blessyoumovie.com
This from another Sabbath Moment friend, Elvis' version of How Great Thou Art
youtube.Elvis
From last week: Another SM friend sent these, hard to believe pictures from the Hubble.
google.com/gview
40% OFF SUMMER Special Discount
including Terry's new
CDs.
The offer is good
through July 4.
Use coupon code SUMMER to get
40% off your entire order (Note: this
discount excludes Terry's upcoming book, The
Power of Pause)
Order today
terryhershey.order
When you checkout in the shopping cart,
you'll see a place on the Payment screen to
enter the coupon code (SUMMER) along with
your credit
card.
Sabbath
Moments:
To See God In All Things
Born
To Dance:
Live life fully from the inside out
Coming This Summer:
THE RELAX, REFUEL,
RESTART RETREAT.
Don't miss it.
Still time for early discounted
registration.
Begin making plans to
attend.
Sign up now for the early
registration special price.
www.loyolapress.com/relax
The Relax, Refuel, Restart Retreat is a great
way for parish / church leaders, for your
leadership team, for key lay-leaders, for
anyone in
parish / church ministry to rest,
re-energize, and
take steps to find balance in their busy
lives. Find the city in your area and
bring your entire parish / church
leadership team! You will not want to miss
this day.
Call 773-281-1818 x
287
Register
Southern
California
Los Angeles Area
Monday, August 3, 2009: St. Peter Claver
Church, Simi Valley
Tuesday, August 4, 2009: Our Lady of the
Assumption Parish, Ventura
Wednesday, August 5, 2009: Holy Angels
Parish, Arcadia
Thursday, August 6, 2009: St. Bruno Parish,
Whittier
Orange County
Friday, August 7, 2009: St. Elizabeth Ann
Seton Parish, Irvine
Monday, August 10, 2009: San Francisco Solano
Parish, Rancho Santa Margarita
San Diego
Tuesday, August 11, 2009: St. Francis of
Assisi Church, Vista
Wednesday, August 12, 2009: St. John the
Evangelist Parish, San Diego
Greater Seattle Area
Monday, September 21, 2009: Blessed Sacrament
Parish, Seattle, WA
Tuesday, September 22, 2009: St. Madeleine
Sophie Parish, Bellevue, WA
Wednesday, September 23, 2009: St. Nicholas
Parish, Gig Harbor, WA
Thursday, September 24, 2009: St. Stephen the
Martyr Parish, Renton, WA
Register
November 6 - 8, 2009
Retreat with Terry
Franciscan Renewal Center
Scottsdale, AZ
Becoming More by Doing Less
franciscanrenewalcenter
Share Our Site:
Look for this Share Box at the bottom of any
web page to email to a friend or to share on
Facebook or any social bookmarking site.
