This hauntingly lovely hymn from my childhood floated into my mind as I looked over the porch railing into my June beautiful garden this morning, and for a moment I was six again, swinging my feet from a humid church pew, absorbing the harmony like I breathed in the air. Isn’t this what church singing sounds like everywhere? I didn’t know to ask that question, because this music was all I knew; this was worship and prayer, the poetry of my world.
How about, O worship the Lord in the holiness of beauty?
Those are the exact words I need when I see the early light wash across randomly scattered larkspurs and nodding pink poppies. It’s the “wow” I talked about last month, all over again.
Now, as summer ripens, I see them everywhere, faces bright and vivid in the distinctive glow of morning sun. I say to myself, “Oh, yes, the new lilies!”
I walk among the garden beds, searching, and I find dazzling splashes of color. Each lily stands, straight and lovely, face raised as if to greet the day, shining deepest orange, warmest yellow, loveliest pink.
I find this beauty, standing alone beneath the spicebush (Lindera benzoin); perhaps no one else will ever see her glory.
Smiling through airy dill foliage, a splendid red-orange specimen greets me. I’ve never seen this one before, and probably no one else has either. Still, there she stands, straight and lovely, being the flower she was meant to be, no matter who notices.
She doesn’t fret about how many “views” she has. And she won’t “go viral,” nor does she care.
No. She blooms.
She shines in all her lily-ness, heedless of who sees.
She glows and splashes her color
right here,
right now,
right where the gardener planted her.
I planted, but I did not make the lilies grow.
That miracle came from the hand of the One who said,
Consider the lilies, how they grow:
they neither toil nor spin,
yet I tell you,
even Solomon in all his glory
was not arrayed like one of these.
then, bloom where you're planted.
Only you can be you.