by jphilo | Jun 1, 2012 | Church Newsletter Columns
Therefore, putting aside all filthiness and all that remains of wickedness,
in humility receive the word implanted, which is able to save your souls.
James 1: 21
I am obsessed with geraniums. Not all geraniums. Just the heritage geranium that’s been in our family for four generations. In the 1930s, Mom’s grandma gave a cutting from her favorite geranium to my grandma. My grandma gave Mom a cutting in the 1970s. A few years back, Mom gave one to me.
Once it rooted in a glass of water, I planted it in a pot and pampered it all summer long. When the weather turned cold, I hauled the pot inside and placed it in front of a south window. After at winter’s worth of pampering, I snipped off cuttings in March, rooted them in water, and planted them outside come warm weather. Each year, I repeat the process, and this year, heritage geraniums rule our lawn – in flower beds, hanging pots, and container gardens.
Uh-huh, it’s an obsession. But a magnificent one. Because my geraniums are a living illustration of Jesus’ parable of the vine and the vine dresser. Every fall, when the plants are moved inside, they respond in the same way. The biggest, healthiest leaves turn brown. When I pluck them off, clusters of small, bright green leaves sprout in their place. Every March, when I prune the plants, more leaves sprout from the stumps that remain. A few days after the cuttings are placed in water, their biggest, healthiest leaves turn brown and drop. Inevitably, roots sprout from the joints where leaves once grew. When warm weather comes, and I plant the rooted cuttings outside, the same thing happens. Healthy leaves turn brown. New, abundant growth replaces them. Every fall, when the weather turns cold, more vigorous geraniums get hauled into the house than the year before.
Each season, as the geraniums struggle with new transitions, I reflect upon my resistance to changes in my family, my work, and my spiritual life. Once I adjust to new circumstances, I want things to stay the same. Forever. But God doesn’t work that way. He constantly prunes me and all his children. He plunks us into new environments. He strips away our dead stuff. He initiates new growth in the places we once hurt the most. When we submit to the pruning and watering and planting and transformation of his Holy Spirit, we keep growing. We bear fruit. We multiply.
I never met the great-grandmother who passed on the cutting of the geraniums her descendants still tend. I think of her when the blood red geraniums blossoms unfurl, and I know a piece of her lives inside me.
My eye hasn’t seen the God whose word is implanted in the garden of my heart and watered by the Holy Spirit. But when I contemplate the cross and consider his blood shed for sinners, I know he lives within me. Grounded by his love, I begin to grow.
by jphilo | Apr 9, 2012 | Family, Reflections on the Past
The lilacs are blooming,
Blossoms purple against deep green leaves.
Their scent rises in greeting this morning
As I walk down the lane.
I welcome these old friends,
Who visit briefly each spring,
Then wave good-bye in the wind,
With never a backward glance at the branches that bore them.
My daughter loved their circle of branches,
A fairy ring just big enough
For one small girl and her dolls
To hold a tea party on summer afternoons.
I look for my sweet, shy daughter
And the circle of branches
In the lilacs,
But both are gone.
The fairy ring is overgrown,
Filled with tender, new lilac shoots.
My daughter is grown,
Filled with tender love for her new husband.
Still, the lilacs blossoms
Return each spring.
My daughter and her husband
Return when they can.
When they turn into our lane,
The lonely branches wave
To greet the shy, sweet girl
Who once nestled in the safety
Of a fairy ring.
by jphilo | Oct 20, 2011 | Daily Life
Fall is progressing with alarming speed. In one short week, the green underbrush along our gravel road has developed a yellow cast. The ditches are clogged with leaves, and on warm days the Asian beetles, homeless since the farmers harvested the soybeans, are everywhere.
Change is in the air, and I don’t like it. The worst change of all was a recent announcement by a couple we’ve grown close to in the past five years. He’s accepted a job in Texas and will be moving within the month. She’ll finish out the school year and join him next spring. My head knows this is a necessary move for them. Circumstances leave no doubt of God’s hand in these events.
But my heart is shouting, “Don’t go, don’t go,” to this couple who have been an example and support to Hiram and me. They lead our small church group. They went through discipleship training with me. They encouraged me when I left teaching to start writing. She brought meals after I had surgery. He mowed our lawn when Hiram donated a kidney and helped cut down some big trees in our yard.
When we were devastated by Allen’s decision to become a monk, they asked to be put on the monastery’s mailing list. They cared about us so much they wanted to learn about our son’s world. Their loving act was exactly what we needed, and it still brings me to tears.
Now they’re moving away, and instead of kicking and screaming like I want to, I have to be mature. I have to think of how the changes in their lives are bigger than the ones in mine right now. How hard this must be for them to leave her family and their college-aged daughters behind. How difficult to say good-bye to their church and friends. So many unknowns face them. Can they find a house? Will they find a church they like? Will she find a job in her field?
They didn’t want this move any more than we wanted Allen to enter a monastery. Still it happened, and it’s finally our turn to support them. I need to learn about their new world and help them adjust to it. I’m not sure where or how to start. But we’ve had some wonderful friends as examples. If I think about what they’ve done for us, I’ll get some great ideas. And be moved to tears.
by jphilo | Nov 11, 2009 | Walking Down the Gravel Road
For the past few weeks, I’ve made conscious attempts to strike a new path. To get more exercise and simultaneously expand my horizons, I’ve altered my walking route to include a jaunt along a lovely path in our city’s largest park.
But my lily-livered legs barely adjusted to the additional distance before disaster struck. City workers with a honking big bulldozer and a jumbo-sized dump truck started tearing out the walking path. Within two days, the little asphalt path was reduced to a dirt trail.
So now I’m smack dab in the middle of a new routine and have to adjust to another change. Just how flexible does a fifty-three-year-old woman have to be, I want to know? While we’re on the subject, here are a few other unwelcome changes in my life.
- Mary Kay discontinued my favorite colors of blush, eye shadow, and lip gloss. Not that I use that many cosmetics, since I was an adolescent during the granola crunchy era and spurned make up until my late forties. But when I finally got comfortable with the one-eighty switcheroo, the company up and changed things.
- If what I heard in a recent radio report is true, they’ve changed the Sesame Street theme song which worked perfectly well for forty years. And if Captain Kangaroo is off the air, I don’t want to know that one either.
I’m not sure how much more change I can handle. If I have to become any more flexible, I’m going to need yoga lessons. And if I take yoga, I know I’ll get stuck in the lotus position and spend the rest of my life as a poor imitation of a pretzel. That is simply unacceptable since I’m trying to watch my salt intake.
But if they replace the old walking path with a new one, I promise to leave my comfort zone and try it out, my face scrubbed clean of cosmetics, my iPod blasting the old Sesame Street theme song while I walk. That’s as flexible as I can be, barring the lotus position.
In the meantime, pass the pretzels.
by jphilo | Oct 2, 2009 | Daily Life
The season changed from summer to fall so quickly. One day the temperature was so warm, I wore a sleeveless shirt, capris and no shoes. The next day, it was so chilly we dressed in long pants and hoodies, then hurried to turn up the thermostat.
When did it happen?
My children changed from kids to adults. One day they needed me to wipe their noses, mend their broken hearts, listen to their dreams and pack lunches to take on hiking adventures with their dad. Now they both have sweethearts, grand dreams, and adventures of their own.
When did it happen?
My mother changed from an independent woman to a dependent one. One day she quilted for hours at a time, read thick books, traveled, and mowed her lawn with great delight. Now quilt patterns confuse her, she reads thin books, sits in her chair, and won’t touch the lawn mower.
When did it happen?
My life changed from teacher to author. For years, I woke every day and dreamed of writing a book, taught kids to read and enjoy books all day, and came home to tired to put my own ideas on paper. Now I wake and write all day, have had a book published, and go to sleep at night with a smile.
When did it happen?
