Tag Archive: sacred ordinary things
Today as I walked
I passed a man
who was eating
an apple.
As I too was eating
an apple
we exchanged grave nods
acknowledging
what it is to have
a good apple, and
a good walk
Talitha Fraser
Today is one of those days with so many things to do I’m not really sure where to start and here I lie in the sun by the duck pond with You.
You make sense of everything, so I know if I bring them here before You, You can sort the wheat form the chaff, by Your grace I achieve all or none of it. I offer these tasks, my time like a sacrifice on an altar before You in the hope it pleases You and fear it will not.
It is not about volume or perfection in the sacrifice but the renewed commitment to be Your servant in all things. Help me not to hold things tightly, not to imagine I have plans, the means of achieving them or really any measure of control – only give me willing, resiliency and openness to change. Where Your will moves things get done and I want to be there to bear witness to Your power.
the tray of
daffodil bulbs from the dumpster
was mostly empty
but imagine
some day
at the tip
messy, smelly, unwanted things
the green shoots first
then golden trumpeting glory
in a unlikely place
Talitha Fraser (photo credit to Duncan Toms)
For anyone who has been to stay with Ched & Elaine in Oak View, you may know of their little system for napkin individualisation which is that you write your name on a peg, attach your peg to your napkin and it’s yours for the duration of your stay (or at least until it gets dirty!). Once they have written a name on each side, these pegs graduate to the clothes line and every time they hang out the laundry they see the names of all the different people who have come to stay – “a great cloud of witnesses” in the sacred ordinary things.
Last night I ran prayers before our open community meal and we all wrote names of people we’ve journeyed with that we want to remember and pray for. I’ve never been great at ‘prayers of others’ but I’m pretty good at keeping up with the laundry; although I will acknowledge laundry can be one of those jobs that feels never ending. Brother Lawrence was a monk in the 17th century who believed in practising the presence of God “…we ought not to grow tired of doing little things for the love of God, who regards not the greatness of the work, but the love with which it is performed.” I’m going to do my laundry with love and mindful prayers for others.
Pictured: Grandma Oak – a significant tree to Elaine and Ched. One of the oldest where they live in Oak View,
this grand dame has been split by lightening and overgrown the “limiting” babrbed wire that got in her way
– a strong, beautiful triumph of nature!
While doing the internship in Oak View there were two other interns based offsite who travelled in for Tuesday/Wednesday and it was great to get to spend time coming to know Julia and Jeremy… I am an introvert and generally try to avoid meeting new people because it feels so awkward and uncomfortable and I’d rather skip that stage! Early in the piece we were doing the dishes after lunch together and Jeremy begins “So…” and my inner introvert braced anticipating the question “What do you do?”, or similar, but no, instead he said “…tell me about a significant tree in your life”. In the interests of full disclosure Jeremy is into anarchal primitivism and the interconnectedness of creation so that’s how he rolls but I felt dumbfounded but what a great question I conceived that to be.
So many of those preliminary introduction questions seem to be about establishing status/knowledge and we skipped it!
My mind went to the low-sweeping willow tree in Wellington Zoo whose branches touch the ground and an afternoon I spent having a picnic under there watching the world go by, or the wild gardens of Erskine College in Island Bay where my friend Jack and I rambled playing everything make-believe amongst the twisted roots and then my mind went to Footscray. Footscray is where I live now, an inner-city suburb of Melbourne quite industrial and functional compared with the leafy avenues out east. It was a bit of a shock to realise that I don’t currently have a significant tree – no place I go to get away from the house for space, perspective, to climb or lean against and read… I made it a bit of an objective being back to go on a tree-seeking mission. …I didn’t find one. But I did find a spot I like that feels tree-ish so perhaps I’ll plant one there.
So… tell me about a significant tree in your life…
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