I went out before dawn, and my rose tour was slightly extended by some wispy clouds that even after sunrise kept the light from being too bright.
My favorite of the morning’s finds might be this bush. The buds are orange, and the open flowers start out orange and fade to a lovely pink blend.
All these warm hues made for quite a glowing bush, as busy and bright as the sun.
I’ll let G.K. Chesterton’s comments accompany this rose
that was on my path through the neighborhood:
“White is a colour. It is not a mere absence of colour; it is a shining and affirmative thing, as fierce as red, as definite as black. When, so to speak, your pencil grows red-hot, it draws roses; when it grows white-hot, it draws stars.
“And one of the two or three defiant verities of the best religious morality, of real Christianity, for example, is exactly this same thing; the chief assertion of religious morality is that white is a colour. Virtue is not the absence of vices or the avoidance of moral dangers; virtue is a vivid and separate thing, like pain or a particular smell. Mercy does not mean not being cruel or sparing people revenge or punishment; it means a plain and positive thing like the sun, which one has either seen or not seen. Chastity does not mean abstention from sexual wrong; it means something flaming, like Joan of Arc.
“In a word, God paints in many colours; but He never paints so gorgeously, I had almost said so gaudily, as when He paints in white.”
-G.K. Chesterton, “A Piece of Chalk,” in Tremendous Trifles
Roses are just the best! Last week I began exploring the roses of my neighborhood, claiming them as my own to the degree to which I enjoy them as gifts from God, with thanks also to whoever planted them and whoever cares for them.
To satisfy my rose-love, I had originally thought of taking a friend to visit a public rose garden, and I would still like to do that sometime. But right now that would add to my very long Projects list, and probably make me more gloomy, as getting behind-er in my tasks tends to do, no matter if they are special or mundane items on the lists.
To fulfill the rose garden idea I would need to research and find the destination, think of whom to ask, find a date, phone the friend, and generally obsess over the plan while neglecting more important work, like getting fresh air and exercise.
So I came up with this better idea, which is just a focusing of a very old plan indeed, merely to get outdoors earlier and go walking alone with my camera. I’ve gathered enough rosy material that I want to share it here, I hope in a series of weekly posts that will often be little more than a photo.
To start with, yellow roses that are at an intersection so close to our house that we drive past them at least once nearly every day, and at other times we walk close enough to pause and inhale deeply. Ahhh…
I traveled over the hill to the nearby monastery one morning last week and pruned roses for three hours. The sisters who came to this place inherited a big garden next to the river, with many plantings they are learning to manage. Sister Xenia is the chief gardener, and she spends a lot of time on the job, but it’s not the only task she’s assigned, and she appreciates any help outsiders can give.
Frost had to be scraped off my car before I left home. It was still below freezing at that time, and I wore my denim skirt, leggings, work boots and a thick flannel shirt over one of my old turtlenecks. But after I’d arrived and started in with my clippers, it wasn’t long before a springtime breeze began to blow.
So many roses! And most of them are not in a location that is good for roses; they are in the shade too much. Each bush was a big challenge to my skill and art, presenting one or more problems including:
1) Too tall and leggy, with no buds down low that my pruning might channel the lifeblood to.
2) Too many large canes and branches crowding each other, so that I had to thin drastically, after deciding based on uncertain parameters which ones to remove.
3) Bushes growing too close to another type of shrub or tree, as in the case of the one pictured, where a Pittosporum has surrounded one tall rosebush.
4) Growing close to the path or over the sidewalk, catching on the sisters’ habits or poking passersby.
5) Dead wood
It really was a joy to have quiet time to focus completely on a project like this, and I needed every bit of my mental resources and powers of concentration to do the work. Also my imagination, as I tried to envision what effect my cuts would have on each bush in the next months and even years.
Afterward when I was driving home, I began to ask myself why I hadn’t prayed while working, and quickly realized that it had taken all of my attention and creativity to do the task set before me. Is it perhaps a little like restoring a painting that has been severely damaged… a little like designing a building that must be raised on top of living ruins? I wonder that, having no real knowledge of those types of art.
One thing for certain, the glory of this art won’t show until after many weeks the plants produce the actual rose flowers. I have just decided that a visit to the monastery is necessary when that brilliance begins, because I’ve never even seen these bushes in bloom. In the meantime I’m posting some old rose photos from my own parish church grounds, to keep me happily anticipating warmer weather.
At about noon the nuns gather for the 6th Hour prayers, and when the bell rang the announcement I laid down my tools and joined them. There was my chance to pray and soak up the Spirit, and the spirit of the place, and to stand up straight for a while and breathe the incense.
I hadn’t pruned all the roses, but I ate lunch with the sisters and went home anyway, meditating on what made the experience so fatiguing. Does it cause God this much trouble to prune us, as the Bible says he does: “Every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit. John 15:2” Does He say to Himself, “I did the best I could, under the circumstances.”? Maybe we grow all out of shape in odd ways, not getting enough of the Sun of Righteousness.
Speaking of sun, it had brought the temperature up to 79 degrees that afternoon. We are all aching for rain here in the West, as we suffer a terrible drought that makes it hard to enjoy those lovely warm rays. The drought is like a dark un-cloud looming behind the sun. Now that I am invested in a few dozen rosebushes, I am a little concerned that some of them might not make it through a water-rationed cycle of seasons to next January when I will try to get back and minister to them.
As we anticipate a possibly very long dry season, my motherly/sisterly feelings are reaching out to the plants and animals, and I’m praying more intently in Divine Liturgy along with the deacon, “For favorable weather, an abundance of the fruits of the earth, and temperate seasons, let us pray to the Lord.”
Gladsome Lights 