Category Archives: church

Lights and a Birthday

church, history, quotes

Today marks a year that I have been blogging, and that seems like an opportunity to tell the origin of my blog’s name. I only now looked on Wikipedia for the vesperal hymn “O Gladsome Light,” which when I hear or sing it always imparts something of the reality of the Trinity of which it tells. When I first thought of writing a blog, there was no other name that ever came to mind, even though I feared it might be presumptuous, to put it mildly, to take that title for my own.

But just as we Christians are to be “little Christs,” so I see that all the gifts I write about come from Him, and anything good that comes from me is a lesser light emanating from God. So I post a candle picture in thanks to Him. I like the little dot at the bottom, a lesser, mirrored light. My tiny candle, or reflection of a candle.

As we are reminded in the first chapter of James: “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.”

O Gladsome Light of the holy glory
Of the Immortal, heavenly, holy, blessed Father,
O Jesus Christ….

Flowers of Matins

church, Lent, other gardens, trees,

One lovely thing about attending more Matins services during Lent is being able to see the flowers in the early morning light. When I walk out the church door to my car, I reach for my camera, and –more often than not, it’s missing!

This morning I found it in the pocket, and walked around a while snapping pictures.

This first one of a camellia has a stray redwood twig hanging on. We have a lot of those cluttering up the garden beds, as there is at least one tall Coast Redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) on the property. Check out the link if you are unclear about the different types of redwood trees.

Long ago when I was in labor of childbirth with my Valentine baby, a friend brought me a bouquet of daphne for my bedside; that was my introduction to the heady scent of this plant. I never realized until this month that I’ve been looking at it growing at church for several years.

  

This afternoon I had another photo opportunity and my camera was home on the computer table where I’d been uploading these pics. So now, I’ve put it back in my purse, and I’m considering an outing tomorrow for the sole purpose of photo-shooting, to catch more glimpses of early spring in my neighborhood.

God Sent a Robin

books, church, family, home, poetry, ,

A robin chirped at me this morning before I got out of bed, and what a lot he had to say!

First, he reminded me of his great-great grandfather, who had spent a whole spring and summer several years ago just bringing a message of love and care from my Father. In those days, every morning I woke to that bird’s song, and every evening as I chopped vegetables or washed dishes, I got used to his company just outside my window.

Not that I ever saw him–he hid somewhere in the trees, or perhaps perched on the roof above my head. I would leave my cooking and wander outside looking for him, because at the time I didn’t know what species the voice belonged to.

Pippin our naturalist had left a set of bird call tapes in her bedroom when she went away to college, and I listened to the two hours’ worth of sample bird songs, but didn’t hear My Bird. When she came home one weekend she heard him and said, “Oh, that’s a robin!” Today I can easily find this page online that might have answered my question then. Or this book with recorded bird calls, given to us by the same daughter more recently.

My 2010 Robin brought his greeting thus: “cheerily cheer-up cheerio.” At least, that’s how the birders describe it. I got the meaning rather than the sound, and it was clear enough.

And he said, “Attend!”, confirming my prayer of yesterday’s blog. I thought back to our first years of homeschooling and a unit study the children and I did. It was structured around character qualities, beginning with those most essential for learning. The first was Attentiveness, and the nature/science aspect of the unit was birds, because one needs to focus and concentrate one’s mind if one wants to notice birds in the first place.

We set up a tray feeder right outside our big window next to the dining table, and every day the towhees, finches and jays would visit and fascinate us. Nothing like that was possible to replicate when we moved to our present house, and any kind of bird feeder only made it easier for the cats to make a meal of any creature in feathers.

“Attend!” is a word we often hear in church, because even there we forget What is Happening and Who is Present. Of course the reverential tuning and turning of our hearts and minds is a key to the spiritual life, and it’s a habit I could despair of ever learning.

This morning I was almost afraid to get out of bed, for fear of getting swept up in the hurricane of decisions and dilemmas about what to focus on, what to do first. Should I phone my lonely friend a tenth time, hoping to get through and make a lunch date? If I don’t, what will I do with these quarts of soup I just made? Am I getting another sore throat? Perhaps I need to run downstairs and gargle first thing. Should I go to Matins, or the gym, or stay home and vacuum?

I did the only thing I could be sure of, and began my prayers before putting my feet on the floor.

O Heavenly King, the Comforter, the Spirit of Truth,
Who art everywhere present and fillest all things,
Treasury of blessing, and giver of Life,
Come and abide in us, and cleanse us from every impurity,
And save our souls,
O Good One.

At a time like this, free-form prayers are of little use. Besides, who could improve on the above? It’s a wonderful beginning for what we want to be A Long Obedience in the Same Direction, to use the evocative title of a book I’ve never read.

I was still there when Robin started in. One thing I heard was this discussion he had with another of God’s creatures:

“Overheard in an Orchard” by Elizabeth Cheney

Said the robin to the sparrow,
“I would really like to know
Why those anxious human beings
rush around and worry so.”

Said the sparrow to the robin,
“Friend, I think that it must be
That they have no Heavenly Father
such as cares for you and me.”

Lenten Spring Things

church, garden, Lent, quotes, trees

It’s Lent now, so I think of everything in that context. Here in the Northern Hemisphere, at least some of us have Spring during Lent, so I want to note that in pictures.

 

What got me going was the graceful manzanita trees at the library yesterday. Theirs have white blossoms. When I came home, I wanted to take a picture of our backyard bush in pink.

 The photo shows the ubiquitous weeds and fallen pine needles that tell of my absence. That’s the snowball bush in the background; it hasn’t budded out yet.

After chilly weather, rain, and a bad cough kept me from even venturing into the garden for several weeks, suddenly one day the sun was shining and I was taking pictures of all the blossoms, the cherry plum tree and violets, too.

B. had been up the ladder pruning the wisteria on the arbor.

Many years I completely miss the violets, their visit is so brief.

Now, about Lent….I have to say I’m off to a disappointing start on several fronts. From one perspective, Lent seems long. That is, if one is thinking only of struggling and feeling defeated.

Or if one feels deprived, and is waiting for feasting to begin again. But Father Michael said Lent is not about deprivation, but rather, “Taste and see that the Lord is good.”

Which made me think of  Isaiah 55:2: “Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread? and your labour for that which satisfieth not? hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness.”

Lent feels short, when I think how slow I am to get with the program of fattening my soul instead of my body. I will almost surely miss this brief opportunity, or at least, fail to make good use of it. I must try not to fret; but how to keep my trying from turning into more fretting…?

All these springtime blooms are helpful to look at, because they bring to mind another picture from Metropolitan Kallistos Ware: “Repentance is not self-flagellation; it is an opening flower.”

I know that my Heavenly Father clothes the lilies of the field, just as He will give me this day my daily bread, Himself my Bread of Life. Now if I will just pay attention and eat from the loaf that tastes good, and nourishes the soul.