These summer days are, for me, hope gathering days. The very beauty of flowers that grace my garden and the songs of all the birds that have arrived at my feeders fill me with a sense of hope that the world is beautiful and wonderful and carries a kindness that is at its core. The warmth…even the heat…calls on our bodies to be open, be alive to the greenness and the growth that during the winter months seems only a dream. So it seems the right thing to do to gather it all up…color and sunshine and sounds of wind and music and place it in the storehouse of our heart for the needed times which are bound to arrive.

I thought of this this past week when these words of Louise Erdrich came across in something I was reading:
“Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and being alone won’t either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You have to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes too near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself that you tasted as many as you could.”

Loss. It is everywhere of course. And I have felt it deeply and have observed its presence in those I know and love. Over the last months people have left this life in quiet and in bold ways. Their loss is palpable and being present to the space they once occupied tears at the heart. Nobody can protect us from that. Yet, love and the practice of love is, I believe, the reason we are here on earth. The risks we take, that swallow us up prepare the gardens of our lives for the beauty. What else is required but to taste and feel and waste ourselves in the sweetness as long as we can and with as much enthusiasm as we can?

So these gathering days of summer are washing over us and asking us to be present, to savor, to relish the gifts of Earth and Sun. Much like the bees who are so busy on all the flowers in my garden right now…drinking deeply of color and sweetness. They flit and fly with a fury that says they know the flowers will be lost to them in a precious moment. They are tiny teachers. Of presence. Of tasting. Of hope. Of living. Of the loss that is bound to come. And the urgency of tasting as fully and as deeply of love and life as we can. 

It’s happened again. Last year, sometime in August I believe, I posted a photo of a sunflower that had planted itself in my garden. While I could logically know it was probably an errant seed dropped by a bird or one of the pesky squirrels that raid my birdfeeders, its presence still seemed magic to me.  I reflected on the gift of it and how so often the amazing things that come into our lives do so without any help from us. All the many invisible lines of connection that we are aware of…or mostly unaware of…that bring surprise and delight. The many ways unknown people support us and make our living possible and often easier. 

Well, it’s happened again. I did not plant this sunflower that has been growing and now is blooming just outside my kitchen window. But this sunflower…this SUNFLOWER…is bigger and bolder than last year’s guest. It started growing in late May while I was away from home on a long trip and has continued to get taller and wider every day for the last several weeks until now, every time I am standing at my kitchen sink, I jump thinking someone is peeking in. Oh, no. Just enormous green leaves. Oh, no. Just stupendous yellow flowers. Oh, no. Just a hungry bumblebee or a delicate monarch butterfly taking a rest among petals. 

Watching its growing progress, I have laughed to myself. Apparently the Universe surmised that I had really not received the message of the volunteer sent to wake me up last summer and so decided to do it up big this year. Not one yellow sphere but many are flanking the side of my house. I have stopped counting and now only wait in anticipation. How many will appear? The one thing I must do, am compelled to do, is to pay attention. Pay attention to the brilliance of golden color and the leaves sized to be helpful clothing Adam and Eve. Pay attention and be in awe. Pay attention and remember…I did not do this. I did not do this. 

It has, again, led me to ponder all those things that come into my life that I did not cause or create. All the people who work behind the scenes to bring food and energy and water and heat and cooling to my every day. All the bees who are busily pollinating and the food that is then grown by hands other than my own. The teachers who are instructing children who will then become the people who help me do all the important yet mundane acts that keep a house, a car, a bank account, a garden, a library, a life humming along in this beautiful and complex world. And all the researchers and scientists who are doing experiments over and over again to find cures and hope…all faces most of us will never see…yet whose work may be just what is needed now or in the future. 

This sunflower…this amazing, amazing sunflower that showed up on my doorstep is an invitation to remember all these invisible beings who flutter in the shadows of our lives. Of course the poet Mary Oliver has something to say about sunflowers:

Come with me
into the field of sunflowers.
Their faces are burnished disks,
their dry spines
creak like ship masts,
their green leaves,
so heavy and many,
fill all day with the sticky
sugars of the sun.

Gardeners will tell you that in this growing season much has come earlier than usual. The sunflower that surprised me last August has been supplanted by its genetic relative arriving in June and blooming in July. ‘Burnished disks…leaves like ship masts…filling the day with the sticky sugar of the sun.’ A wake up call. An invitation. A gift. 

And for this human, gratitude beyond measure. 

Blue. It is not even my favorite color. But last week as I was sitting at a little cafe table outside my neighborhood coffee shop enjoying an iced mocha and reading a book, I was assaulted by the color blue. I looked up at the clear, summer sky and it took my breath away. It was as if blue was screaming:”Look at me! Look at me!” And so I did. I put down the book and sat there. Transfixed by the simple beauty of blue.

Later I was drawn to this poem by the wonderful, intuitive poet, Naomi Shihab Nye:

We forget about the spaciousness
above the clouds

but it’s up there. The sun’s up there too.

When words we hear don’t fit the day,
when we worry
what we did or didn’t do,
what if we close our eyes,
say any word we love
that makes us feel calm,
slip it into the atmosphere
and rise?

Creamy miles of quiet.
Giant swoop of blue.

Since that moment when blue awakened me to the ‘spaciousness above the clouds’ I’ve been thinking about this primary color. It really is the color that is the curtain that frames the stage that is our living. It is the canopy under which we stand. I wondered how we would perceive green (my favorite) without blue. And what would the white of clouds be without their backdrop of sky blue? It says something about our need for diversity in all things, doesn’t it?

Of course there is the other meaning of blue…that feeling, that melancholy that visits all of us at one time or another. In my pursuit of all thoughts of blue I was reminded that Picasso had what was known as his “Blue Period.” During this time he painted in monochromatic shades with washes of blue. It was during a period in his life when he was responding to the poverty and instability he was experiencing and he saw reflected in the world around him. Definitely something to feel ‘blue’ about and if someone painted us on certain days, blue would likely be our color. Interestingly, these paintings are believed to be some of his most popular works. Maybe we all need a way to paint the times in our lives when blue comes to take up residence in us. 

It is a strange thing to become fixated on a color. Yet, I am thankful for it. It was, and is, another nudge toward paying attention to these fleeting summer days when blue sets the scene for the greens and other colors that grace our gardens and our days. Soon enough the blue of the sky will hold not only the white of clouds in place but reflect off the snow that will visit for a season, often one that seems to overstay its welcome. 

Perhaps on those winter days I will be able to think back on the moment that blue startled me into amazement. On those days I might remember what the poet says: “what if we close our eyes…say any word we love…that makes us feel calm…slip it into the atmosphere…and rise?Creamy miles of quiet…Giant swoop of blue.”

Yes. Blue. Blue. Blue

“Be joyful, keep the faith, and do the little things that you have heard and seen me do.”
~St. David, Patron Saint of Wales

Recently I returned from traveling in Wales where the group of folks I was with visited St. Davids, named the smallest city in the United Kingdom. I learned that if a village or town has a cathedral it becomes a city so this sweet gathering of small cottages and shops took on increased  status because it is anchored by the beautiful St. David’s Cathedral. Living in the 6th century as many Celtic saints seemed to have done, David became the patron saint of this small country. The quote above is attributed to St. David and it is said that a common statement that is made throughout the country is:“Do ye the little things in life” (“Gwnewch y pethau bychain mewn bywyd”).

I have been thinking about that statement, a commission really, over the last days. So often I can become overwhelmed by the things that need to be done in my daily life…house projects, garden duties, the things that need to be accomplished in any given life. And then there are the many acts that need to happen to help heal our relationships, communities and our world. It is so challenging to see the situations in our world that need our effort, our talents, our resources to overcome the devastating condition they are in. Homelessness. Poverty. Injustice toward others. Educational inequities. And then there is climate change. It can weigh down not only our bodies and minds but also our spirits. 

That’s why seeing these words of this ancient one captured my imagination. “Do ye the little things.” It makes it more manageable to think small, doesn’t it?  To think of the smaller possibilities I am capable of rather than allowing the weight of the larger things to paralyze me. And the fact that this declaration began with the words, “be joyful”, that rounds the edges on it all as well. Joy and small things. Seems doable.

In 2020, Siôn Aled Owen, a Welsh poet and theologian wrote this about St. Davids:
A village that thinks it’s a city,
tucked in a far corner
of a nation
that’s sometimes just part, or so it seems,
of another Nation more Great,
maybe.
With its surprise, surprise oratory
waiting to be found
by those who seek
or not.

And though the many-chambered edifice
now ascending the valley
would have shocked Dewi
with the descending visitors,
ghosting invaders,
the shy sanctuary,
the status understated,
hidden in plain sight
from the heart of the smallest city
would,
I dare imagine,
have warmed a final smile
gracing his legacy:
Do small.
Build big.

Many times doing the small things creates a pattern that leads to bigger things. Somehow I think David was counting on this. Of course this can be a positive and sometimes a negative. Our intention in the little steps can be what makes all the difference. Down the street from my house, a garden has grown through many small acts to create something greater in what always looked like a scruffy, abandoned lot. One couple thought of adopting this little plot and planting some vegetables and flowers to make a more beautiful landscape. The first year the garden and effort was small. Now it has grown to include not only veggies of all kinds, but corn, flowers, a few fruit trees and also many volunteers who harvest the food and take it to some place that gives it away to those who don’t have access to fresh produce. This group has done small things with great joy…and a little sweat and dirty hands…that has become something big and far reaching. 

Somehow St. David’s story and that of these neighborhood gardeners helps me to feel less overwhelmed and more hopeful about the world we are all creating together whether we always recognize it or not. Small acts. Big impacts. 

Much joy.