Sunday Silence

As I face the blank screen I am aware of the blessing of silence so apt for a Sunday morning. No whine of air compressors, roar of leaf blowers (that is a week day activity)or even vroom vroom of my neighbors five vehicles being sequentially started and primed through some testing sequence that he knows, but I do not.

Silence is a blessing. My friend who is sailing sent a sail-mail this week about how wonderful it was to be able to see a gazillion of stars, a phenomenon that is usually lost to us because of the artificial light all around us. That email prompted me to remember camping in the high Sierras when I was in my teens. My family went with another family and the silence that summer night was palpable, a quiet so deep that when I ponder it now, I can understand why people are called to be hermits, why they prize being able to move noiselessly through the woods almost as though they are not there.

Big Sur and Point Lobos are two more places where the silence was like a cloak, a gentle presence of its own, inviting us to seek the Presence whom we look for in church. Once in a great while I have experienced that deep silence in church, but usually there is a bustle there as people come in and ready for a service or the sounds of the city impinge on the quiet interior of the church.

Liturgists have argued fiercely about the role of silence in the services they arrange. Those arguments definitely broke the silence in a manner that argued for the silence in themselves! I have always been on the side of those seeking silence. The most sacred moments of the liturgy convey themselves best if we are not asked to "participate" by making some noise--or even gestures. But then, I am "old school"--keep silence in church, keep silence in the halls while passing from one class to the next, or risk detention, keep silent if you don't have anything good or kind to say about someone else. (Silence here can speak louder than words, too.)

I give thanks today for silence and am blessed.

Glorious Sunday

I rolled outside today and took plant pictures. One of the most magnificent plants in my yard is a twenty-five year old rosemary that thinks it is trying to take over the county. It is covered in blue flowers that are so pretty and abuzz with bees. Good to see considering that the bees are having trouble surviving these days.

One of my greatest photographic challenges is trying to capture the bee or bees at work on the rosemary flowers. This is something that I have been trying to do for three years and will keep trying.

The daffodils are still pretty; the hyacinths are too and one azalea is blooming in a little pot. Two pots contain leaves of bulbs--tulips in one, calla lily in the other that will bloom sometime soon. I would particularly love to the see the calla bloom in time for Easter. I like it better than the more traditional "Easter lily". I am allergic to the fragrant lilies, which is too bad.

The old, old white flowering Satsuma plum in my next door neighbor's yard is blooming and is so fragile, and ethereal looking. It bloomed the year my Mama died during the week that she lay dying and I have thought of it ever since then as my resurrection tree. It is one of the things I am always most grateful for on a hot summer day, for it shades my bedroom window and allows me to rest until the worst of the heat passes and I rise to open windows. That time will come sooner than I think; I dread it already for it is getting harder each year to cope with the heat. In the yard behind me a beautiful flowering plum tree is putting forth a veil of pink blossoms. Unlike the Satsuma, it will not bear fruit.

When I was young and the house was almost brand new--nearly fifty years ago--the entire neighborhood was alive with blossoming plum trees at this time of the year. They did not do well, I am not sure why and they have gradually been replaced by other kinds of trees.

The sunshine streaming in today makes me cheerful and warms me as I type. Sunday is good; life is good and spring is definitely coming.