Post 22/2021 Friday 28 May . . . Spring unfolds in beauty with the colors, sounds and fragrances of late May. If you allow for cadences and language of the past (thee, thou), then you’ll find that the two quotes I’ve selected timelessly underscore the beauty of creation. Or, if you choose, you can skip to pictures from the past week. Spring’s beauty bursts out anew! It warms my heart and sets my feet a-movin’.

1. Johann Kepler

Johann Kepler (1571-1630), was a German astronomer, mathematician and astrologer. In his prayer, one senses his notion of knowledge gained through seeing the world as one, material and spiritual. Still much to learn in both realms.

“O thou who through the light of nature hast aroused in us a longing for the light of grace, so that we may be raised in the light of thy majesty, to thee, I give thanks, Creator and Lord, that thou allowest me to rejoice in thy works. Praise the Lord ye heavenly harmonies, and ye who know the revealed harmonies. For from him, through him and in him, all is, which is perceptible as well as spiritual; that which we know and that which we do not know, for there is still much to learn.”

2. Gerard Manley Hopkins

Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889), grew up in an Anglican family and studied at Oxford University. At Oxford, he had a religious crisis and with the counsel of John Henry Newman entered the Jesuit Order to study for the priesthood. In 1877 he was ordained a priest and served in a variety of Jesuit schools and parishes, all the while continuing to write poetry. A poem written in Scotland, Inversnaid, speaks of his passion for the environment: “O let them be left, wildness and wet; / Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.”

Hopkin’s poem, Pied Beauty, shows this poet-priest’s love of nature and appreciation for the tools of humble labor.

Pied Beauty

Glory be to God for dappled things --
for skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
for rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim; 
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches' wings';
Landscape plotted and pieced-fold, fallow, and plough;
And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.

After many moons, our court neighborhood gathered for a potluck

Our one-plant flower garden

Gatherings

On this Memorial Day weekend, many can again embrace the camaraderie, shared food, remembering through in-person gatherings. May those yet unable to do so, find such times just around the corner. I love this out-of-doors, backyard picnic grace by Ruth Burgess:

Sausages
beans
chips
and ice-cream,
it can't get much better than this,
can it God? 

Blessings!

-John