Considering lilies...

 

 

 

I've been much in thought about Luke 12. Where Jesus told us to 'consider the lilies.' Oh it is so like Jesus to use something as simple and lovely as flowers to convey his thoughts to us...

 

"Walk into the fields and look at the wildflowers. They don’t fuss with their appearance—but have you ever seen color and design quite like it? The ten best-dressed men and women in the country look shabby alongside them. If God gives such attention to the wildflowers, most of them never even seen, don’t you think he’ll attend to you, take pride in you, do his best for you?"

 

 

 

 

 

 ^29-32 “What I’m trying to do here is get you to relax, not be so preoccupied with getting so you can respond to God’s giving. People who don’t know God and the way he works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how he works. Steep yourself in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. You’ll find all your everyday human concerns will be met. Don’t be afraid of missing out. You’re my dearest friends! The Father wants to give you the very kingdom itself."

 

 

I'm listening, Lord. And I'm considering the lilies...

 

 

Have a wonderful weekend!

 

 

***

Hole in the Sky

There is a place, a peaceful place beneath the maples.

 

A place of wild roses, berries and rosehips. Of statice and eagles and painted daisies. Of goldenrod and Queen Ann's lace.

 

 

And if you choose to leave the  main path and follow a little, almost indistinguishable trail through the maples, birch, and salmonberries, you will come to a beach. A wild, Northwestern beach strewn with driftwood and seaweed. You will be alone here, except for the gulls and heron...and your thoughts.

 

 

 

This is a place where things live. A primitive place teeming with the stuff of creation. Mud, slime and clamshells; barnacles, rocks and all things beautiful and elemental. 

There are buried treasures here. Like sunsets emblazoned in shells on the sand.

                                                                It's a place of pure joy;

 

of contemplation, 

where earth and sea and sky gather together in one place.

This place is called Semiahmoo. (Se-mee-Ah-moo).  Chief James Charles, chief of the Semiahmoo tribe from 1909 to 1952, claimed that the word Semiahmoo means “half-moon,” and describes the shape of Semiahmoo Bay. Historian Lorraine Ellenwood wrote in "Years of Promise"  that “it translates, in one sense, as ‘water all around’ or ‘hole in the sky".

 

Semiahmoo is a spit. And as such, there is water on the east side of the spit, and on the west. Half of the land is protected as a county park and historical site. The other half has some condominiums, a hotel, and a marina. The glorious thing about it is, that one can sit on the beach in the morning and watch the sun rise over Mt. Baker in the east. And from the same beach in the evening you can simply turn and watch the sun set over the water in the west.

 

If I could live anywhere, it would be here.

 

 

I came here as a child. Waded. Collected shells and agates. Dug for clams. I cannot imagine not coming here.

 

Perhaps Semiahmoo is a hole in the sky.

 

***

Of Morning Walks in the Spring Interrupted by Nature

We took our usual morning walk today, Baron and me. An elderly couple passed by. He wore a red flannel jacket, plaid, that hung a bit askew. My guess is that he's been wearing that coat since the Christmas of '89.  She was clad in a sensible navy parka that set off her short-cropped silver hair.  Hand-in-hand they were.

"What a comfortable couple," I said to Baron as we watched them proceed up the street.  Baron thought so too, as evidenced by his wide Black Labradorian toothy grin. Baron is a very agreeable walking companion indeed!

Just as Baron was about to tell me his thoughts about this couple and the mildness of the morning and the fact that the lavender azaleas are in bloom; he was interrupted by a such a hullaballoo, such a squawking ruckus from above that all of us, the gent in his flannel coat, his wife of many years, myself and Baron too, were compelled to look above. A gaggle of geese, Canadian honkers in classic V-formation glided past. It seemed as though all 50 or so of them had different thoughts about which direction they should go...and they weren't at all shy to tell their leader so! Funny how such a graceful sight as geese on the wing can at the same time be such a wild commotion.

We stood there for a moment, Baron and I and the couple, gazing at the geese as they winged their way to parts unknown. "Maybe they're going to the fallow corn fields by the bay," I commented to my dog. He wasn't sure but wagged his tail all the same.

And the geese were gone. Passing through our morning like a thought we forgot to say.

And so we continued on, Baron and I and the couple in their coats. And so we continued on.

 

Have a plaid-red-flannel kind of weekend, my friends!

.