Pastor Annette's Blog
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"OF ALL THE THINGS GOD HAS SHOWN ME, I CAN SPEAK BUT A LITTLE WORD . . . NOT MORE THAN A HONEYBEE CAN CARRY AWAY ON ITS FOOT FROM AN OVERFLOWING JAR."
~ MECHTHILD OF MAGDEBURG, 13TH CENTURY MYSTIC |
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Beloved:
I’ve been to breakfast and Brown County this morning with Bill Coverdale. He knows the way to a daylily farm where I wanted to buy flowers. Acres of flowers cultivated by people whose names I’ve yet to learn. She greets us like people she was expecting; glad we’ve come but sad to say none of their 40,000 varieties are for sale. The ground is too dry for digging so we window shopped instead. We visited her husband who was staking cucumber vines. For this job he carries a Pringles can full of bread ties in leg pocket of his overalls. “Brilliant!” I thought. She showed me how to cross pollinate two different daylily colors; about 45 minutes of labor spread over two years. They harvest a bushel of tomatoes PER PLANT by growing each plant in a five gallon tub engineered with trash bags, duct tape, rabbit wire, pvc pipe, a 20 oz soda bottle, rocks and a handful of 12-12-12 fertilizer. They have rows of them set atop wood pallets. “ Higher yields and we never over water them this way,” she explains. “I’d buy some eggs if you’ve any to spare,” I told her. “I’ve some purty green and brown chicken eggs, or duck eggs if you’d rather. I’m needing $2 a dozen for them now even though I hate to say it,” she said. They also grow geese, turkeys, guineas, pigeons and pheasant. “We’re studyin’ on peacocks. We hear they’re good for guarding the place.” To myself I wondered if Biscut and Buzzsaw, the fox terriers who were leaping and barking hysterically were offended by this comment. So I left with eggs instead of flowers but richer just the same. Rich to be alive and well on a cool summer morning with my flower loving friend. Rich to be greeted by someone who doesn’t know my name and yet receives me as though she has nothing in this world better to do than hang out in the garden and answer my questions. Rich to learn from them and be invited back, just to look around, or for eggs, or flowers - if it ever rains again. Of course I’m going. ~ peace and prayers, pastor annette Attachment - one I bought at the daylily farm two years ago
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Beloved:
The woods out back are loud with bird noise, like some inner city traffic jam. Below that is the paddering of sprinkler spray hitting the leaves and garden dirt. Weeds and vegetables grow wildly in the soil recently delivered from some cow pasture. But not the roses or tree peony. Dug, potted and replanted through the course of a landscaping renovation, they look more dead than alive. Their damage and dormancy is hard for me to bear. I feel responsible for their trauma ~ I AM responsible for their trauma. They were perfectly happy and thriving in the shabby garden with the rotting timbers. I’ve traded the shabby garden with gorgeous roses for the gorgeous garden with dying vines. As repentance I try to think of them like very sick people whose best treatment is to sleep and sleep and sleep. They know what they need more than I do. All that is left to me now is to water and love them. JOY! and your will in this life are the desires of my heart, O God. To be fully planted, completely entrusted, to the course of life you give to those who hold nothing back. If my life and work these days is your best for me ~ may its joy consume me. If there is something else ~ a new way ~ make it my heart’s desire. Purify my longing, O God, that it flow in the current of your will. Dislodge me from the comfort of the the familiar and the lesser joy therein. Forever press me to the hidden, deeper joy known to those who step by faith, confident of your delight in loving us. ~peace & prayers, pastor annette Beloved:
“What was your favorite part of Scotland? asked my son’s teenage friend. “Hill walking,” I told her, “hiking down into a glen full of sheep who bleated and baa-ed at us for interrupting their grazing. Crossing their pasture to the beach beyond, a beach covered in rocks and pebbles of white marble, pink granite, jasper and Iona green stone. The beach is named St. Columba’s Bay.” I was too shy to tell her the truth - that my favorite part was the time and space to pray, with people who love to pray, in places where Christian people have prayed for 1400 years, Celtic people for whom prayer and worship and work were a three-plied, undivided way of life. I was too shy to say my favorite part was feeling like an adopted child finally meeting her birth parents, the sensation of being suddenly at home in my own soul. Alas, other people for whom the jump of a whale, the sound of the wind, the smell of warm earth and the miracle of flowers are as real an experience of God as any studied text. People who find themselves as in awe of God in the forest, the garden, and the ocean as in the cathedral. I was too shy to admit the relief I felt to discover ancestors who valued stories, poems, songs and prayers far more highly than nice buildings, sound theology and efficient organizations. They lived their faith in order to understand it - instead of understanding it in order to believe. No need to defend or explain anything in order to believe ~ what utter relief and joy simply to enjoy the awesome reality of being alive in the greater life of creation. Joyful relief to realize my most intimate experience of God is not some some suspect New Age fad, but an ancient way of faith. Celtic believers did not organize life by family, work, faith. It would not have occured to them to think of the world as sacred and secular nor the self as body, mind and spirit. God is in and through all ~ all of life is prayer and worship. It is a way that feels to me very much like home. peace & prayers, pastor annette http://www.netplaces.com/saints/holy-animal-lovers/st-columba-and-the-horse.htm |
I write a Tuesday morning devotional to members and friends of UBC. It is also posted here.
Enjoy! Pastor Annette Copyright
Everything on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons license, which gives you permission to copy freely, provided that you attribute the work to me, that you use the work for non-commercial purposes, and that you do not produce derivative works. Archives
April 2025
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