Hello, friends, and Happy Sunday. The last few days have been cool -- we are leaving summer behind for good now. I've been out in the greenhouse cleaning up a bit; I've neglected it these first five weeks of school, but I'm ready to start planting again and ready for the fall and winter chapel version. We'll need new hymns, I think, and old ones, to stir the soul. I grew up on hymns... "How Great Thou Art," "Great is Thy Faithfulness," "Softly and Tenderly," and many more.
Today, as I worked and sipped a Blood Mary with thyme from my garden and garlic salted cucumber (also homegrown and sliced with love), I listened to a band called Fear & Fable, and their tune "Hymn," featured on the album Fleurie. We love with the senses, don't we, as much as anything, and the fresh, cool taste of cucumber and tomato juice remind me. If you'd like to try the recipe, Give it Some Thyme
And it seems to me, listening, that a hymn is a tribute to belonging -- a call to remember that belonging.
"Somewhere high up in the air there
I had forgotten I belong to you"
We remember, and our mouths open with a song. I belong to the Church in the Greenhouse, to the mung bean sprouts, my childlike art on the walls, to the basil and bean, to the plants whose names I grew from seed but whose names I have forgotten. So it seems I need a hymn this morning. Let me try:
Oh, heavenly greenhouse, the gifts you bear belong to me,
and I as much belong to you in this place that sets me free.
Heavenly greenhouse, heavenly greenhouse,
don't you call my name and sigh,
for you know that my hands will linger
and tend the thyme if I pass by.
(It is a beginning, anyway. )
Can you see the thyme tucked in the basket here? If I want something established in the sacred, I can always turn to John Montague, editor of a collection of traditional Irish verse, "from the Sixth Century to the Present."
He Praises the Trees
Huge-headed oak,
you are tall, tall.
Small hazel, pick
me your secret nuts.
Alder, friendly one,
gleam, shine;
you bar no gap
with a toothed thorn.
Blackthorn, dark one,
provide sloes;
watercress, brim
the blackbirds' pools.
Small one, pathway
loiterer, green
leaved berry, give me
your speckled crimson.
Apple tree, let me
shake you strongly.
Rowan, drop me
your bright blossom.
Briar, relent.
Your hooks have fed
content till you
are filled with holy blood.
Church Yew, calm
me with grave talk.
Ivy, bring dream
through the dark wood.
Hollybush, bar me
from winter winds.
Ash, be a spear
in my fearful hand.
Birch, oh blessed
birchtree, sing
proudly the tangle
of the wind.
(Version: Robin Skelton)
I can also go online and have a church service with Jubilee Circle and listen to the meaningful instruction offered by the pastor, as I am doing now while I write to you. The band is singing "Give a Little Bit" by Supertramp as the introductory song today. You can see why this is my kind of church. Next on the bulletin: "I Make My Own Sunshine." Indeed, and how perfect for one like me, who grieves the summer when the fall winds make themselves known.
I will plant Zinna today -- a variety called "Giants of California," and make my own sunshine in the greenhouse if all goes well. Hope and generosity go well together, as I am learning from today's sermon. I have just read that zinnias are often given to friends who have been absent for a long time, or as a going away gift. I love the idea. More here. Come and see me, old friend, and you shall have one coming and going.
"Sing a song of seasons! Something bright in all! Flowers in the summer, fires in the fall."
(R.L. Stevenson)
I have lived in the green, green of summer with hummingbirds hovering, the red hibiscus bursting as well as the tomatoes. It has been rich. The thing about summer is you can't hold on to it --- not quite --- but you can trade it for a crabapple, and it's only a little bitter. What if the things we really want, says the pastor, is what we give away, "because what has been given to us is divine," and in the moment of giving, we are moving forward, coming closer. It is like a celebration, and it is holy generosity.
"Domestic autumn, like an animal
long used to handling by those countrymen,
rubs her kind hide against the bedroom wall
sensing a fragrant child come back again"
(from "Another September," by Thomas Kinsella)
(painting by September McGee)
Doesn't the lady look as if she were born to sing a vibrant hymn?
Oh, heavenly greenhouse, what wish have I to make?
All the sighs for summer gone, the joys of autumn now to take...
Come by if you need a sanctuary,
Tamara
Wonderful!
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