Spring is appearing in various guises all over the northern hemisphere. Here in southern Arizona, various cacti are blooming spectacularly. It’s difficult for me to choose which route to walk each morning, because I want to check in on various plants that are showing buds, and I know that if I walk one way, I might miss the single day of magnificence that’s showing up in another area of my large neighborhood.
Every blossom is a gift of grace, an evocation of the creator. Extravagant blooms erupt from plants that, for much of the year, appear dull, spiny, and unwelcoming. The same can be true with us. As the daily grind wears us down in various ways, we can become gloomy, grumpy, and prickly. We might not welcome a surprise gift from the Spirit because it comes wrapped in the too-muchness of everyday life.
I wrote a poem that speaks to this process:
Sea of rough stones,
mounds of slim spines,
endless beigeness
briefly broken:
Easter colors,
fragile flamelets,
rise from knolls of
prickly prisons.
Bees come flocking,
heart keeps pounding,
soul takes snapshots
for the long drought.
Fortunately, the creator keeps offering divine grace, day after day, in way after way. Whether it’s a flower which blooms for only a single day, or a smile that blossoms for just a moment on the face of a fellow Zoom meeting attendee, we receive enough grace to keep us going.
We are also invited to become evocations of that grace ourselves, to bring it forth in our own lives and evoke it in others. Last week, I began a series in what I’m calling an Eastertide Garden of the Heart. Today’s word-seeds are grace, becoming, and evocation. We all receive grace to begin again. We can make the choice to blossom with fiery spectacle or bristle with painful spines.
We can choose to embrace Easter joy and evoke in others. How might you do that today?
Blessings Shirin. Your writing supports my “TODAY” post.
“I was a stranger and you welcomed me,” Matthew 25:35
We do not ever know who it is that will show their face to us, in any circumstance.
I pray that we will acknowledge their goodness as we become friends. Amen.
Our God is an awesome God. Amen.
Hi, Ray. I’m glad my writing supports yours. Indeed, we don’t know what future friends God will put in our path.
Peace,
Shirin
This is welcomed, timely and absolutely lovely! I just spoke with and prayed for a friend that is going through a particularly “thorny” patch. We prayed for that new measure of resurrection grace and an infusion of the holy spirit that allows us to wait … to wait for the time to bloom, to wait with confidence that our God IS an awesome God. Thank you for this beautiful meditation that filled my cup again! Now I am going to send your page to my sister who is also going through a rough time. Her husband was recent diagnosed with CHF but that seems to change with each doc appointment and opinion! Your words will be a balm to their weary hearts and souls.
Oh, Joyce, I’m so glad that my post was timely and helpful for you. I pray it will be helpful for your friend and sister also. My prayers are with you and your family.
Peace,
Shirin