Simple Glory

Lately I have felt like I was living in a psalm. You know: fire, pestilence and plague, family crises of health, loss of loved ones.

Except, then, now, comes the glory. Simple glory mind you, little things, like the day working out better than you could have hoped. Smiles and laughter and hugs when you least expect them. Sunshine and neighbors and friends and a fertile garden.

Now, then, comes the understanding. Now comes the re”connection” with God and with creation that is the absence of “sin.” Now I have glory, simple glory but glory nonetheless, in the long term and in the short. Lamentations 3:22 “The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases, his mercies never come to an end.”

For example, now I have flowers in the garden. My whole life I refrained from cutting flowers in the garden because “they should look good out there.” This year I’ve gone almost each day into the garden with my clippers and a basket and brought in flowers. We’ve saved a fortune since May on cut flowers. They’re really much more beautiful when you’ve nurtured them yourself. And, keeping them cut encourages new and continued growth. But I think the most important thing is how happy it makes me to make that little trip into the garden each day. It revives my soul and my connection to creation. And that joy stays with me as I go on about the rest of the day. There is, perhaps, no mystery about the glory now appearing in my life.

In Luke 17:5-10 Jesus tells his apostles “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would  obey you.”

Faith the size of a mustard seed begins in the small things, in the trips into the garden, in the joy in the discovery of flowers blooming, in the happiness spread through creation, in the nourishment of the gardener which also is the nurture of the garden.

Proper 22 Year C 2022 RCL (Lamentations 1:1-6; Lamentations 3:19-26; 2 Timothy 1:1-14; Luke 17:5-10)