Where Wonder Grows

Summer is nearly half over! It is already time to take out my zucchini plants, which have astounded me with their bounty. It’s amazing to plant seeds in the ground in the beginning of May, harvest twenty pounds of veggies in June, and then by mid-July they are already done for the season. The second half of the summer will be all about figs and okra. The SEEDS Garden is nothing less than a patchwork of miracles. I hope you take time to go and walk the pathways between the garden beds and be astounded at how glorious these little fussed-over boxes of dirt have become. Let it be a labyrinth for you, your steps taking you on a meditative, or prayerful journey for 10 – 15 minutes. If you happen to be with children, or even invite the child in you to stop and smell flowers, peer deeply through the foliage, touch the dirt. In a garden you can see God at work. It's a “thin place.” Let wonder and delight be your prayers.

“The Summer Day,” by Mary Oliver

Who made the world?

Who made the swan, and the black bear?

Who made the grasshopper?

This grasshopper, I mean —

the one who has flung herself out of the grass,

the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,

who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down —

who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.

Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.

Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.

I don't know exactly what a prayer is.

I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down

into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,

how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,

which is what I have been doing all day.

Tell me, what else should I have done?

Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?

Tell me, what is it you plan to do

with your one wild and precious life?

I hope you take some time to bask in some of summer's beauty.

Peace,

Leslie