Consider the Lilies of the Field

I’m pleased to report that I feel heaps better today; thank you all for your kind words of encouragement. It has even been noted by Smithers that I am back to humming happily to myself as I potter round the house although, as I’m not at all musical, that may be a mixed blessing in his case.

My energy dip was the result of being a Martha, as distinct from a Mary (for those of you who are familiar with the biblical reference). Every so often I get completely overtired and feel a failure for having no energy to do anything whatsoever. Every time it happens, I need to rest and just accept the fact that God loves me for who I am and not, as I might sometimes erroneously think, for what I do. 

I mentioned yesterday that I always manage to get things more into perspective if I go out into the garden and drink in the beauty of my surroundings, and this is an idea that has often been explored by poets. In The Tables Turned, Wordsworth discusses the thought that there is wisdom to be found in spending time in the natural world, where he even describes a thrush’s song as a sermon. This lovely poem by Christina Rossetti based on Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 6 also uses personification – this time using flowers as preachers – so I decided to create a collage today of photographs that I have taken over the years of each of the flowers and plants that she mentions in it, as a reminder to myself of God’s love for me. In the spirit of Blipfoto, though, the ‘Blessings’ rose in my garden in the bottom right of the collage was taken today.


Consider the Lilies of the Field

Flowers preach to us if we will hear: –
The rose saith in the dewy morn:
I am most fair;
Yet all my loveliness is born
Upon a thorn.
The poppy saith amid the corn:
Let but my scarlet head appear
And I am held in scorn;
Yet juice of subtle virtue lies
Within my cup of curious dyes.
The lilies say: Behold how we
Preach without words of purity.
The violets whisper from the shade
Which their own leaves have made:
Men scent our fragrance on the air,
Yet take no heed
Of humble lessons we would read.

But not alone the fairest flowers:
The merest grass
Along the roadside where we pass,
Lichen and moss and sturdy weed,
Tell of His love who sends the dew,
The rain and sunshine too,
To nourish one small seed.

Christina Rossetti