THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO FLOWERS!
Had to do a little homily from San Francisco, in the spirit of St Francis! So here’s a little flower sermon, since my hair is long now and I’m in San Fran:
The earth is always evangelizing as it says, so we are without excuse, the invisible qualities of God are all around us symbolized and encounter-able in nature. We, though, are more interrupted.
But the birds and trees are in the story directly. Our love gaze relieves their groan. We are writing our way into it, back home. They are not the ultimate, but are swimming in and expressing, and symbolizing it!
We tend to dip our toes into it, and retreat. Reality is too much for us. Even that amount of Love and Beauty intimidates us. Even a loving glance from a stranger, makes us shudder in unbelief. Embarrasses us. Causes us to retract, enacting the old shame in all its fear of beholding fully into being seen and so seeing, in Love.
Are we afraid to encounter it, or of being laid bare by it? If we see a single green glade well, will we be forced to unfurl ourselves? If we see God in a leaf, do we look the other way? Heaven and earth kissing in front of us-does that embarrass us? Do we fear their intimacies?!
A kingdom already in our midst, in tangible art all around us daily. A girl’s wrist in afternoon light, at any cafe, or a single flower, even at night, tells the whole gospel. A single sunset alone is opera, any child could not ignore or tune out! In art, we simply, and in a rudimentary way, emulate those hourly crescendos, we each walk by daily.
Our cat snow seems to get it-he is less worried about doctrine than being and love.
The inner life of leaves alone, their unity in diversity, compels me towards…not to mention the overt overture of flowers in their multifarious silent but sonic praises daily!
Perhaps we need more deeply to behold the gospel according to flowers, the inner geometry of the animal kingdom, if we can’t hear it elsewhere!
That way, we can’t just react to how poorly humans carry it. Nature speaks clearly like poetry. And it’s harder for the heart to argue with a poem.
Sorry for getting homiletic. But nature and my nature, compelled me too! What dense poetry we live in. Our aquarium compels us to learn to swim. Thanks for letting me go hippie on this sermon! Enjoying preaching from the city of flowers in your hair. Good reminder to notice them.
One old preacher said: “One can see the gospel in anything, if you look deeply enough.”
And as St Francis said: “If you look at a single flower, not to mention a person, deeply enough, in Love, you will meet God, and be changed.”
“God is not so “other” that He did not come down, incarnate, and express Himself; we can know His invisible qualities through His art which is all around us. A flower is enough proof to learn to live well in Love.”
(End of my hippie sermon from the flowers of San Francis’ city!)