A Prayer in Spring

Dear friends,

My spring break with Fiat Lux is done, and it is time to get back in the writing groove. I have much appreciated my time away from this space: time to think, and pray, and time to travel a bit. More of each will surely come, but with May bright upon us, it is time to write once again.

To ease back into this, I pass along a classic poem by Robert Frost, sent the other day by our friend, Karen from Tennessee. The photo was taken by Lori of Mountain Laurel, blooming behind our house on the hillside. Enjoy your week!

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A Prayer in Spring 

By Robert Frost 

Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers today;
And give us not to think so far away
As the uncertain harvest; keep us here
All simply in the springing of the year.

Oh, give us pleasure in the orchard white,
Like nothing else by day, like ghosts by night;
And make us happy in the happy bees,
The swarm dilating round the perfect trees.

And make us happy in the darting bird
That suddenly above the bees is heard,
The meteor that thrusts in with needle bill,
And off a blossom in mid air stands still.

For this is love and nothing else is love,
The which it is reserved for God above
To sanctify to what far ends He will,
But which it only needs that we fulfill.

The daffodils are here at St. Paul's Memorial Church

Winter is definitely in retreat here in Charlottesville. Did the clock change have something to do with it? It snowed a week ago, and Monday it was in the 70s.

The other day I got this wonderful photograph from Thomas A. Marshall, a professor at the University of Virginia who likes to take photos in and around the grounds of the University. Thank you!

The daffodils are definitely in their glory this week on our grounds at the church. Maybe we should have a daffodil festival one of these days?

Poem for your day: Celebrate this unlikely oracle of Spring

Yes, it is snowing again, and I must admit I am a bit weary of it. I can ski only so much down our little hill. Spring is around the corner, or so I am promised by the Virginians.

In that spirit of hopeful promise, here is a poem sent earlier this week by our wonderful friend Karen in Tennessee. Blessings to all...

Groundhog Day
By Lynn Unger

Celebrate this unlikely oracle,
this ball of fat and fur,
whom we so mysteriously endow
with the power to predict spring.
Let's hear it for the improbable heroes who,
frightened at their own shadows,
nonetheless unwittingly work miracles.
Why shouldn't we believe
this peculiar rodent holds power
over sun and seasons in his stubby paw?
Who says that God is all grandeur and glory?

Unnoticed in the earth, worms
are busily, brainlessly, tilling the soil.
Field mice, all unthinking, have scattered
seeds that will take root and grow.
Grape hyacinths, against all reason,
have been holding up green shoots beneath the snow.
How do you think spring arrives?
There is nothing quieter, nothing
more secret, miraculous, mundane.
Do you want to play your part
in bringing it to birth? Nothing simpler.
Find a spot not too far from the ground
and wait.

Spring and the cycle of life

Spring is in full blush in Virginia. We took a trip up to Northern Virginia yesterday afternoon to pick up my cousin Cait, who is here for a few days from Ireland. The trees along the route are gushing with new green. The colors in Virginia change daily: red or pink on the redbud trees one day, then the dogwoods burst into white the next day. Meanwhile, the green canopy on the big trees is bursting forth.

Yet with all of this new life of Spring, there is a sharp contrast with the farewells we are enduring at St. Paul's in recent days. We've had three funerals in a week, and there are two more coming in the next week. These always seem to come in clusters. Seasons are predictable. But the cycle of death and new life has no rhythm, no predictability; death and life comes when it comes, often at the same time. 

Our friend, Karen, sent a Mary Oliver poem this morning that captures this well, I think. The photo goes with the poem, and is from the Shenandoah National Park from our hike a couple of weeks ago. Here you are:

In Blackwater Woods 

by Mary Oliver

Look, the trees
are turning
their own bodies
into pillars

of light,
are giving off the rich
fragrance of cinnamon
and fulfillment,

the long tapers
of cattails
are bursting and floating away over
the blue shoulders

of the ponds,
and every pond,
no matter what its
name is, is

nameless now.
Every year
everything
I have ever learned

in my lifetime
leads back to this: the fires
and the black river of loss
whose other side

is salvation,
whose meaning
none of us will ever know.
To live in this world

you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it

against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.

Springtime mysteries and astonishment

Who hasn't seen this yet? Well, maybe some of you. Britain's Susan Boyle who, against all conventional ideas of glitz, has brought the world to their feet cheering with astonishment and delight. This is so worth watching, so please do. Easter is definitely here. The clip has had more than 18 million hits on YouTube, and YouTube has disabled the coding so I can't put the video directly on this blog. Click HERE to see this. 

And when when you return, here is a lovely Mary Oliver poem, sent by our friend Karen in Tennessee, for a gorgeous spring day. The photo is of a Redbud tree at an undisclosed location (the house we are trying to buy) in Charlottesville, taken by me a couple of days ago. Enjoy the day.

Mysteries, Yes
By Mary Oliver

Truly, we live with mysteries too marvelous
to be understood.

How grass can be nourishing in the
mouths of the lambs.
How rivers and stones are forever
in allegiance with gravity
while we ourselves dream of rising.
How two hands touch and the bonds
will never be broken.
How people come, from delight or the
scars of damage,
to the comfort of a poem.

Let me keep my distance, always, from those
who think they have the answers.

Let me keep company always with those who say
"Look!" and laugh in astonishment,
and bow their heads.

Spring and the orchards

It was only a week ago we were skidding around the icy streets of Charlottesville and I was posting about snowflakes.

Today Spring arrived. You can smell it in the air.

Somehow, I have always lived near orchards even when living in cities. When I was small, my dad ran a can factory in San Jose, and the orchards were behind our house -- peaches, pears and walnuts mostly. My friends and I spent most of our summers playing in the orchards. Migrants from Mexico came to do the picking.

When I was a young adult I lived in Riverside, east of Los Angeles, and my little rental house was in the last stand of working orange groves in Southern California (now covered with miles of houses). Spring was magical in Riverside, the sweetness of the orange blossoms filled the air, especially in the mornings.

In Sacramento, we lived in a city that floats on a sea of orchards and farms in the Central Valley. The Blue Diamond packers are not far from our house; walnuts and almonds mostly were packed for shipment all over the world. Any trip up or down I-5 takes you through miles of orchards and groves.

And here in Charlottesville, you don't have to drive far to be thick in the apple orchards. We took a drive Friday through Crozet a few miles from here; the orchards are ready for a new season. The trees will soon be in bloom, and there is something Lenten about that. We are not quite at Easter, but ready for the buds to fill the trees. 

So I thought I would share a poem, provided by our friend Karen in Tennessee, who took the time to send this in between all she is doing with a new-born infant at home. The painting that goes with it is by Massachusetts artist Stephen I. Soitos.

Here you are. Enjoy the orchards and the sweet, sweetness of Spring:

The Apple Orchard
by Rainer Maria Rilke

Come let us watch the sun go down
and walk in twilight through the orchard's green.
Does it not seem as if we had for long
collected, saved and harbored within us
old memories? To find releases and seek
new hopes, remembering half-forgotten joys,
mingled with darkness coming from within,
as we randomly voice our thoughts aloud
wandering beneath these harvest-laden trees
reminiscent of Durer woodcuts, branches
which, bent under the fully ripened fruit,
wait patiently, trying to outlast, to
serve another season's hundred days of toil,
straining, uncomplaining, by not breaking
but succeeding, even though the burden
should at times seem almost past endurance.
Not to falter! Not to be found wanting!

Thus must it be, when willingly you strive
throughout a long and uncomplaining life,
committed to one goal: to give yourself!
And silently to grow and to bear fruit.