Prayers from the Island Planting Pansies

Planting Pansies

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 I planted a flat of pansies today, eager for spring’s splash of color in my heard.  The island consists entirely of sand and oyster shells, so maintaining soil is difficult.  I try to add topsoil, but it filters through the sand and vanishes.  I must work at growing flowers on the island, digging, replenishing, fertilizing and watering.

My religious life is like that too.  I can’t take for granted that an occasional watering or spading or fertilizing will suffice; I need to work at my faith, keeping it weeded and tended.  Too often I assume the seeds of faith planted as a child should be enough to last me all my life, but that’s not good enough.  Please forgive me, Father, when I neglect my garden of faith; help me to be a more faithful, diligent, and joyful gardener.

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Quiet TimesQuiet Times

   There are days when I walk on the beach and greet everyone I pass with a smile, a nod, and a brief “Hello!”, Other days, like today, I feel cocooned in my own thoughts, almost oblivious of others as they pass me.  Like the sea itself, our energies and thoughts sometimes ebb and flow, focused inward or outward, depending on the day’s needs.  I ask you, dear Father, to make both perspectives profitable.  May I have quiet time when I can turn my thoughts inward to touch your face and feel close to the Christ who lives within me.  But may I never lose balance—may I also remember to turn my energies outward, reaching for the Christ who resides in others.  Help me, like the sea itself, to maintain a measured balance.

StolenStolen

I spoke with a woman in the store this morning.  During our conversation, she said she’d once been in a church with a large congregation, and when she went to the altar for Communion, she returned to her pew and discovered her purse had been taken. How sad that during a time of communion, someone had chosen to rob rather than share. I thought of how things are sometimes stolen from me when my mind is elsewhere.  I walk on the beach wrestling with other people’s problems or with situations over which I have no control, and I’m robbed of the day’s beauty and the ocean’s gifts.  I let myself feel apart from God, and my faith begins to erode, just as the water bites at the shore.  Forgive me, Lord, for letting you go too easily, for letting situations rob me of your presence.  Yes, bad things happen, even in the church where there are more avowed sinners than anyplace else.  Please help me to approach you always knowing there is nothing more important than my closeness to you. Amen.

 

An Ever-Burning LightAn Ever-Burning Light

The days grow shorter and shorter.  At supper’s end we turn on the lights, circles of brightness in the house.  The decks are dark now, empty of flowerpots.  Only the cacti receive illumination, light pooling outside the window.  From the deck stars seem numberless.  I watch as did the ancients, those who walked in darkness until they were given the light of hope.  Those people believed in a promise, but I have been given the light made flesh.  When I am surrounded by this deep darkness, I can better appreciate how precious the thought of light must have been.  Without streetlights or electricity, without flashlights or lanterns, their nights were black and unrelenting.  Shadows must have cast terrifying images against small fires that brought warmth and a ring of safety.  We have been given a light that continues to shine through the ages, a light born in Bethlehem and raised from a borrowed grave.  A light from Heaven returned to Heaven, a light that illuminates the past, present, and future.  Oh Lord, especially at this time of year, I thank you for the Light—a light that shines on my path here and now and leads me to a glorious future. Amen.