In the song, “God bless the grass,” Malvina Reynolds praised the fact that no matter how much we try to remove grass from cracks in the sidewalks, it is ubiquitous and grows where we least desire it. Like the truth, she wrote, it turns toward the sun and is soon everywhere. God bless the grass.
Flowers grow as well where we least expect to see them, such in stone walls, adding a touch of beauty to what would be little more than a grey wall. Those flowers are much like our struggle for living the truths of our lives, coming out from the cracks between the large boulders of a stone wall.
We wonder how the flowers could grow against a wall, especially when they are a good 15 feet above the flowers below. The wall is flat so a bird could not have built a nest, not even in the cement holding the wall together. But beauty can burst into our lives as can the truths we want to avoid. The Spirit speaks to us in many ways; we only need to be open to its wonder.
Prayer for the Day
In the magnificence of the heavens, the thunder of the oceans, O God,
In the whorls of the nautilus, even in grains of sand, you are present;
Enhance our vision of your creation so we are faithful to you,
Broaden our understanding so we are open to your truths.
Grant that we find signs of your life in the world, Holy Creator,
And enable us to care for even the smallest of your creatures.
In the name of the one who held grains of sand in his hands,
Even Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.
Thoughts for the Day
Weeds are flowers, too, once you get to know them.
- A.A. Milne, British author (1882-1956)
Wildflowers are breathtaking and rugged. They grow magnificently free, abundant and undisciplined by nature, completely in flow with the current of life, innocent and unruly, and at ease in their fully expanded state.
- Kris Franken, from Wildhearted Purpose
Consider how the wildflowers grow; they neither toil nor spin;
Yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed as one of these.
Luke 12:27