June 19, 2012

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