Monday, September 23, 2024 The Profundity of a Flower Garden

It has become my habit to spend part of Sunday afternoons sitting on our bench in the flower garden, usually with a book and my phone. The sun is in the west by the time I’m out there, giving a warm embrace to the left side of my face. As I read, I’m hearing the nearly constant drone of bees. I lift my eyes frequently to see them visiting the flowers in front of me. Oh, how busy they are while I sit idly on my bench, reading a book as they are doing the most urgent work of their lives. Bravo to the bees! Lots of butterflies are going to and fro as well – mostly white ones, but occasionally a monarch shows up with class and dignity. The hummingbirds, too, are doing their best to drink up everything they can as fast as they can. They all know these days are coming to an end.

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I return to my book. I’m reading Gilead by Marilynne Robinson, all of which could have been written while she was sitting in a garden like this that has begun the slow death of approaching fall. The narrator of the book, John Ames, is a 76-year old pastor who married very late in life, and now has a 6-year-old son whose adulthood he does not expect to see, having been diagnosed with heart disease. The writing is awash with nostalgia, sweetness and melancholy, all bound together. Immersed in these words, I am surrounded by the deep theology of a flower garden. It’s quite a rich experience.

I feel that familiar sense of glad mourning that comes at this time of year, even as I read and ponder. There is something to mourn when nights turn cold, when flowers dry up, when the busy bees and butterflies are gone, when leaves fall, and when darkness encroaches on the day. But underneath the mourning, there is always the gladness of the promise of spring.

Amen. Come, Lord Jesus! This is John Ames’s hope. This is my hope.

I might have to delete this in the morning; the darkness is encroaching on the day of the blog.