Divine Discontent and Longing

wild violets emerging from dead leaves with a drop of sunlight  ©A.Rutherford

Someone else has felt it too . . . .

THE MOLE had been working very hard all the morning, spring-cleaning his little home.   First with brooms, then with dusters; then on ladders and steps and chairs with a brush and a pail of whitewash; til he had dust in his throat and eyes and splashes of whitewash all over his black fur, and and aching back and weary arms.   Spring was moving in the air above and in the earth below and around him, penetrating even his dark and lowly little house with its spirit of divine discontent and longing.   It was small wonder, then, that he SUDDENLY flung down his brush on the floor, said "BOTHER!" and 'O Blow!" and also, 'HANG SPRING-CLEANING!" and bolted out of the house without even waiting to put on his coat.   Something up above was calling him imperiously, and he made for the steep little tunnel which answered in his case to the gravelled carriage-drive owned by animals whose residences are near to the sun and air.   So he scraped and scratched and scrabbled and scrooged, and then he scrooged again and scrabbled and scratched and scraped, working busily with his little paws and muttering to himself, 'Up we go!' till at last, POP! his snout came out into the sunlight, and he found himself rolling in the warm grass of a great meadow. 

~ Wind in the Willows ~ Kenneth Grahame

One of my very favorite books  *smile* . . . a lovely story... I adore the idea of "scraping and scrooging," and to find a meadow after all of that would be wonderful. To roll in the grass more wonderful still.

March is the month that flirts with us.  She’s temperamental, blowing hot and cold, enticing us with sunshine, then drenching us with cold rain or even snow.  But slowly, we see light and life emerging from the darkness of winter, and we feel renewed energy bubbling up in us as well, overcoming the inertia of winter. 

The prose of Winter is turning into the poetry of Spring. 

Prose or Poetry?

The world outside my window

Is wide and beckons me

To leave my perch so safe

And seek the poetry

Of vistas wild and free.

At my back the hearth-fire

Makes a counter claim,

"Stay within the prose tale

And risk not what you've gained, 

The tried, the known, the sane."  

Insistent comes the whisper,

As softly as a sigh;

The life beyond my window

Is awaiting my reply.

© A. Rutherford

“Flowers appear on the earth; the season of singing has come, the cooing of doves is heard in our land.”  -Song of Solomon

I will confess that this may be a bit of a “cheat” as I have purchased daffodils from the nursery to put in my sunroom, but placed up against the bank of windows, I can almost convince myself they are blooming outdoors.  Alas, only the foliage is up in the garden.

______________________________________

Sabbath Thought: Gratitude

Psalm16:5,11 

Lord . . .

The land you have given me is a pleasant land.
      What a wonderful inheritance!

. . .

You have shown me the way of life, and you will fill me with the joy of your presence. 

Mindful

                    by Mary Oliver

Every day

I see or hear

something

that more or less

kills me

with delight,

that leaves me

like a needle

in the haystack

of light.

It was what I was born for -

to look, to listen,

to lose myself

inside this soft world -

to instruct myself

over and over

in joy,

and acclamation.

Nor am I talking

about the exceptional,

the fearful, the dreadful,

the very extravagant -

but of the ordinary,

the common, the very drab,

the daily presentations.

Oh, good scholar,

I say to myself,

how can you help

but grow wise

with such teachings

as these -

the untrimmable light

of the world,

the ocean's shine,

the prayers that are made

out of grass?

To live content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not rich; to listen to stars and birds, babes and sages, with open heart; to study hard; to think quietly, act frankly, talk gently, await occasions, hurry never; in a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common--this is my symphony.

                                   -William Henry Channing, 1810 - 1884

There are joys which long to be ours.

God sends ten thousands truths,

which come about us like birds seeking inlet;

but we are shut up to them,

and so they bring us nothing,

but sit and sing awhile upon the roof,

and then fly away.

                                        ~Henry Ward Beecher

__________________________________________________

Sabbath Thoughts

photo ©A.Rutherford

Have you not known? Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint or grow weary;
his understanding is unsearchable.
He gives power to the faint,
and to him who has no might he increases strength.
Even youths shall faint and be weary,
and young men shall fall exhausted;
but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength;
they shall mount up with wings like eagles;
they shall run and not be weary;
they shall walk and not faint. 

                                            - Isaiah 40:28-31

__________________________________________________

Sabbath Thought: The Blessing of Good Work to Do

    Connemara Mowers, County Mayo, Ireland ©A. Rutherford

                                      
In Ireland every time you go around a new bend in the road, there is something which takes your breath away.  And the people, too, seem to be filled with it, a sensitivity to wonder and delight.  Not so jaded as most Americans who are so intrenched in the material world, most of the Irish still seem able to connect in some deep way with the world around them, above their heads and under their feet, the same connection as the mower in Frost's poem from Thursday felt with his world and his work.

The day I took the photo above I was walking on a graveled path above these fields with a local artist who was guiding me to find some ancient Celtic ruins, a burial dolmen on a hill beyond the farmer's field.  As we walked along, we came upon these men scything their fields, working away in a scene of incredible beauty.

As we passed by close enough, my fellow artist raised her hand in greeting to them, and her voice sang out across the field in a lovely lilt, "God bless the work," which she explained to me was the traditional Irish greeting to those engaged in their daily chores.

I loved it, and I thought how wonderful to have someone pass by you who didn't even know you and sing out to you, "God bless the work!"  How affirming that would be!  How it would connect you to your fellow man, to your work, and to God . . .  how very real . . . and what a blessing to feel connected to God in the labor of your work week as well as in your Sabbath worship and rest.

The One

Green, blue, yellow, and red—

God is down in the swamps and marshes

Sensational as April and almost as incredible

the flowering of our catharsis.

A humble scene in a backward place

Where no one ever looked

The raving flowers looked up in the face

Of the One and the Endless, the Mind that has baulked

The profoundest of mortals. A primrose, a violet,

A violent wild iris—but mostly anonymous performers

Yet an important occasion as the Muse at her toilet

Prepared to inform the local farmers

That beautiful, beautiful, beautiful God

Was breathing his love by a cut-away bog.

-Patrick Kavanagh, Irish poet

There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God, for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment?  

                                                                                   -Ecclesiastes 2:24-25
__________________________________________________

Sabbath Thoughts

 a stream at Glendalough, County Wicklow, Ireland

©A. Rutherford

 Psalm 27

The Lord is my light and my salvation;

Whom shall I fear?

The Lord is the strength of my life;

Of whom shall I be afraid?

. . . 

One thing have I desired of the Lord,

That will I seek after;

That I might dwell in the house of the Lord

all the days of my life

To behold the Beauty of the Lord,

And to enquire in His temple.

For in the time of trouble 

He shall hide me in His pavilion:

In the secret of His tabernacle shall he hide me;

He shall set me up upon a rock.

. . . 

Wait on the Lord:

Be of good courage,

And He shall strengthen thine heart;

Wait, I say, on the Lord. 
__________________________________________________