Sweet peas

Don planted the sweet peas this year. Having run out of time to start them as seeds, we purchased seedlings from a garden centre and he put them in. Most of them went in the usual spot, where the trellis is strong for them to cling to. The extra went beside the rhubarb, where there is another support network, less robust but there nonetheless.

The ones in the usual spot are thin and straggly, with few blooms. They have reached the top of the trellis and are beginning to topple. The blooms are often single rather than double. Despite fertilising, the soil there is depleted. I’m negligent at summer feeding and really only do it before planting, and the result is there for all to see. Scraggly stems, few blooms. Nevertheless, their fragrance is intoxicating.

The leftover seedlings planted by the rhubarb are robust. They have been lounging over the top of the support for weeks now, so that all of the strong-stemmed blooms start out headed earthwards before they curve back towards the sky. All the blooms are doubles, and like their weaker cousins, their fragrance is intoxicating. The soil there is not worn out. The position in the garden is more open to the sun. There are no potatoes competing for nutrients nor mint marauding their roots.

I’ve been busy. Yesterday afternoon I had things to do. There are always things to do in this house, in this garden, and it was a nice day. I sat down in the conservatory, and three hours later I sat there still, catching up on reading, having time to pray and enjoy the presence of the Lord. A bit of respite.

I went into the conservatory draped over the supporting arm of the Saviour, feeling straggly and knowing if blooms there were, they were singles. Maybe there was a hint of the perfume of the Lord, but it was time. Time to be fed. Time to rest. Time to sit in the Son. Time to listen to his voice.

It will take more than a couple of hours on a random day for me to begin to bloom like my prolific sweet peas. But hopefully wisdom will win here, and I won’t neglect the feeding and resting and basking in the light.

Done and Dusted

July 2016 done and dusted. Wow. Into August, onward, onward at what feels like an ever-increasing pace.

But in the hallway at the bottom of the stairs, an antique grandfather clock marks the moments with a resonance and a reassuring metronomic measure. Because it isn’t working quite right, it never clangs out the hour, just beats out the rhythm of the moments. I like that. I don’t hear the progression from 10 gongs to 11 gongs and so on but instead just have the steady tick-tock like a heartbeat in the home.

We had a gathering of the family – all who could come – over the weekend and it was wonderful. Raucous and loud as we challenged each other at ‘Wizard’. (Want to know who won one of the matches? ;-) ) Serious discussions. Everyone helping in the kitchen. The joy of an almost-two-year-old with her all-encompassing pronouncements: ‘Uh-Oh’. The incredible blessing of three more babies on the way, growing steadily and well, out of sight until the amazing scans reveal shadowy faces and definite limbs, brains, kidneys, hearts – just awesome. 

First time we had all been together since Christmas, but at Christmas we had Mhairi and Mom with us too, and despite all the noise and hilarity there were the empty spaces where they were not. Missed, always missed. For all the blessings of skype, geographical separation still sucks.

Life goes on. The clock is still marking out a sedate cadence in the hallway. The rooms are empty again, sheets on the lines, left-over cake in the tins. 

Blessings of love. Blessings for which we are overwhelmingly grateful, knowing not everyone has a place they can gather with loved ones, or even loved ones with whom to draw close. 

Praise God that as time marches on we all draw nearer to that eternal source of love and everlasting reunion.

Time to Go

Scrunching through leaves underfoot, colours fading, pliability hardening into brittle fragility. The brittle ones break; the pliable ones bend under my weight.

The larch tree is aflame with the needles which cling tenaciously to the branches. I know it’s only a matter of time until they, too, will carpet the drive and the denuded arms of the larch will stretch out, vulnerable to winter’s icy blasts ... which are surely coming.

Today, however, is yet another glorious Indian summer day. Crisp and cool as morning breaks but softening into gentle warmth. Quite amazing when I think of the number of Guy Fawkes’ bonfires I’ve huddled round with our kids, snow on the ground and breath visible.

I’m on my way to the dentist. A decade ago a tooth was pulled. That is, it was levered and pushed and pulled and hammered and broke up in bits, with some remaining hidden. How deeply hidden I had no idea but now, almost twelve years later, a big bit has finally surfaced and is causing a bit of a problem. 

Is it brittle, or is it pliable? Will he be able to wheek it out in a deft flick of the wrist or will it require something more physical? Will he leave it to continue its slow journey north, like some sort of iceberg, breaking up as it moves until at last nothing is left?

Random thoughts. Is there a theme here? Let’s see. I’m hoping the root of that long ago tooth will not cling tenaciously to my gum but will simply give up and allow itself to be removed easily. There was a time when that tooth served a noble purpose but that time is no more. It is a liability and a pain, to tell the truth. And yet, the trauma of its removal all those years ago led to an amazing intervention by God when the next tooth played up. But that’s another story.

Time to go. There is a time for every purpose under heaven. A time to cling on and a time to let go. My times are in God’s hands. Whatever the day holds, I walk into it trusting him to hold my hand. I know he is faithful and he will not let go.

The Clock is Ticking

Whenever a deadline approaches, the clocks seem to tick louder. I am aware as I write this that I am writing to a disappearing generation. Today’s watches and clocks don’t tick; they just switch digitally minute to minute in silence.

Time is running out – another antiquated allusion to the hour glass which has given way to digital stop watches.

I once stayed in a home where chiming clocks graced every staircase, landing and virtually every room. Of course they were not synched so they all marked time to their own inner workings. That pretty much drove me crazy and contributed to the insomnia I was suffering from. I would hear the clock on the stairs strike in a very pretty tune every 15 minutes throughout the night, which panicked me into the thought that I needed to be asleep before it went again. Then the one downstairs would go at a different interval, and the one echoing up from the living room also chimed its heart out whenever it reached the hour.

We have a lovely grandfather clock tick-tocking away in the hall way, and it is the best of all worlds. In the years when it sat silent (because of its proximity to my bedroom!) it lost its voice. So, although it marks the minutes, it has no ability to strike the hour. I hear the peaceful throb of the minutes but miss the driving rhythm of the hours.

Thoreau wrote somewhere that we all walk to a different beat. How sad it would be were we all to be synched to the same personality or character or even ambition. Our God is a creative God who delights in making each individual completely different. And yet, somehow the same. 

May we rejoice in diversity today, and celebrate our similarities. May we walk and sit and breathe in peace, calmed by a steady rhythm but not driven by a clanging gong. And to God be the glory.

Vital Statistics

The cycle of life. I heard of some deaths this week. Some elderly, long awaiting the call, went home. Others taken in untimely ways. Murder. Car accidents. Civil unrest. Accident at work. Sorrow and grief.

I also heard of some new life this week. A couple of new babies born. Pictures received of twin girls born to a couple who long waited for this blessing. Lots of pictures. New babies expected – longed-for babies. Delight and rejoicing.

I’ve been in the garden again, tentatively because of my bad back. Cutting away last year’s withered and dead flowers. Picking up crunchy leaves littering the flower beds and revealing lilies of the valley (I thought I weeded all of them out! – but now that they are about to flower, I haven’t the heart...)

The dead make way for the living. 

As in our spirits. Time to cut away all that is dead and dying within our spirits – or to ask the Gardener to do it, our heavenly Father. If we let it lie on, it will stunt new and healthy growth and prevent flowering. It will kill off what might one day bear fruit in our lives.

Time to spend time with the Gardener. You too?