Category Archives: Faith and Spirituality

Once Again, Ash Valentine’s Day

This year, Ash Wednesday and Valentine’s Day both fall on February 14.  The last time this happened was in 2018.  I know, because I wrote about it back then.  What follows is my post from six years ago, with a few minor changes. 

These two holidays are unlikely bedfellows, so to speak.  Ash Wednesday is a day when Christians are urged to face mortality head-on and clear-eyed, to gaze into the bleakness of what would have been, had it not been for God’s saving grace.  It marks the start of Lent, the forty-day period leading up to Easter, during which prayer, repentance and self-denial are encouraged.  Lent’s Biblical basis is Christ’s retreat to the wilderness to commune with the Father in preparation for his ministry. 

Valentine’s Day, on the other hand, needs no explanation.  It’s a day for celebrating love in all its forms. It typically involves the giving and getting of various treats.  It’s a day for indulgence, not denial. 

To Lenten sticklers for self-abnegation, the concurrence of Ash Wednesday and Valentine’s Day will likely pose a conundrum.  To deny or not to deny?  Chocolate or no chocolate?  Dessert or no dessert?  Wine or no wine with that special Valentine dinner?  Perhaps a compromise:  to begin the denial process on February 15? 

I’ve written several times about Ash Wednesday.  See: Looking into the Ashes (March 1, 2017), and Saved from the Ashes (February 10, 2016).  I’ve tried Lenten self-denial in the past, but I’ve been known to lose track of the larger purpose.  The season’s truly spiritual pursuits–prayer, Bible reading, penitential introspection–they sometimes were left in the dust (or the ashes) of Ash Wednesday.  A couple of times, when I renounced all things sweet, my Lenten journey became little more than a period of dieting.  I wince when I recall certain instances of self-righteous forbearance that must have made me a most disagreeable companion.  See Mindful Eating, and a Mindful Lent (March 24, 2012). 

The purpose of Lent is to try to become more like Christ.  Instead, in our singular focus on denial, we become more like the Pharisees, those elite Jewish leaders who prided themselves on following every iota of the Mosaic Law.  They were probably among those Jesus denounced for ostentatious fasting:  “And when you fast, don’t make it obvious, as the hypocrites do, for they try to look miserable and disheveled so people will admire them for their fasting.  I tell you the truth, that is the only reward they will ever get.” (Matthew 6: 16, New Living Translation)  Jesus called out the Pharisees for their empty, showy arrogance and for the stumbling blocks they set up for others:  “You shut the door of the Kingdom of Heaven in people’s faces.  You won’t go in yourselves, and you don’t let others enter either” (Matthew 23: 13).  Overly zealous regarding trivial details, they tended to miss the big picture:  “You are careful to tithe even the tiniest income from your herb gardens, but you ignore the more important aspects of the law–justice, mercy and faith.  You should tithe, yes, but do not neglect the more important things. Blind guides!  You strain your water so you won’t accidentally swallow a gnat, but you swallow a camel!” (Matthew 23: 23-24).   

On Ash Wednesday, I look into the dark ashes and contemplate Jesus’s supreme sacrifice.  I give thanks that his unimaginable love lifts me from the depths of destruction and despair. 

On Valentine’s Day, I’ve usually painted cards for family members, sometimes also for friends. There will be candy for my mother and daughter. I try to cook one of my husband’s favorite meals. If I’m really on top of things, I’ll make the caramel-topped sponge cake, or the sugar cookies he likes. (I apologize in advance this year, when there will be no homemade desserts.) H may come home with a box of Russell Stover’s candy–maybe the Assorted Cremes? He knows that’s my favorite. He’s also learned over the years that I’m not a fan of that traditional over-priced Valentine staple–the bouquet of dark red roses.

During Lent, I’ll try to take Jesus as my role model. I’ll keep my Bible close at hand.  I’ll eat some chocolates.  I may also swallow a few gnats. 

But I hope to avoid the camels.  

Happy Ash Valentine’s Day!

Lighting up the Darkness, 2023

Throughout our home during the Christmas season, little lights shine in the darkness. It’s one way that we mark these weeks, from Advent to Epiphany, as a special time. A time set apart from the ordinary.

The dining room sideboard glows with an illuminated miniature house and twin topiaries.

Also in the dining room, three little alpine trees, decorated largely with homemade shell ornaments. The trees provide a base for the humble clothespin nativity.

In our newly finished attic space, a miniature village, decorated for the season.

Of course, each house has its Christmas wreaths.

Lights and ornaments on the big tree in the living room.

Atop a bookcase in the family room, the holy family, their donkey, with a shepherd and his sheep.

The three Magi and their camel approach from atop an adjacent armoire.

May the light of Christmas warm your heart this season and throughout the year!

Moon Glow (on the Second-to-Longest Night)

Yesterday, as I was anticipating tonight’s longest night of the year, I thought about our deep-seated human need for light and warmth. Scarcity drives demand, and the short, dark, cold days of winter require us to feed the need through creative means. We devise inventive ways to kindle the fire indoors, to bring the comfort of light and heat into our homes. And possibly, we hope, into our hearts.

For some reason, I stepped outside. I saw the moon. And it was spectacular. Against a dark blue backdrop dotted with small white puffy clouds, the bright half-moon was encircled by a halo of iridescent rings. It looked rather like a glowing opal hovering in the sky. Late last month, during a chilly night walk, my daughter and I marveled at a wide pearly circle around the moon. It was lovely, but it lacked the dazzling colors that I witnessed last night.

What causes a ring around the moon? I’ve often wondered, but never sought out the answer. Now I know. To put it very simply, in terms I can comprehend, it’s produced by light shining through ice crystals high up in the atmosphere, and therefore more likely to occur in colder months.

I almost didn’t attempt a photo. I knew it wouldn’t come close to capturing the beauty I saw firsthand. But I gave it a try, and the resulting images were better than I had expected.

As winter descends and night falls way too early, I’m grateful that many rooms in our old farmhouse will soon be glowing softly with strands of miniature white lights. The day has become cloudy; the sky looks like a white sheet. It’s doubtful that a magical, rainbow-ringed moon will be visible tonight, on this longest night. But, as the old year ends and a new one begins, the vision of that strikingly haloed moon will remind me to look up and out on clear nights. It will prompt me to be ever thankful for a message I treasure always, but especially during these short, cold days. It’s the hope and promise of Christmas:

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can not overcome it.

Gospel of John, 1:5

In the Lowly Petunia, Seeds of Hope

In my last post, I wrote about the industrious squirrels that have planted a lovely crop of sunflowers in our back yard.  Unfortunately, most of the other plants that pop up, unbidden, untouched by human hands, are not as welcome.  As the typical suburbanite knows,  a dizzying number and variety of weeds grow smarter and more determined with every passing year.  My husband, for example, is currently waging war against his leggy green nemesis, stiltgrass, which seeks to take over the lawn. 

But there is one self-seeding flower that I’m always happy to see: the petunia.   

I’ve known a few rather snooty gardeners who look down their noses at the petunia. They consider the flower to be too compliant, and therefore expected and ordinary. I’ve never felt that way. In the deep shade of old oaks and tulip poplars surrounding my childhood home in Atlanta, no sun-loving flowers ever lasted long. We tried repeatedly, but without success. I was elated to be able to grow mounds of bright, hearty petunias here in Virginia, on and around our sun-drenched back patio. They’re perfect in the big pots atop the brick pillars along the fence line. They bloom quickly and continuously, well into the fall, needing only light and fairly regular watering. I especially love this Queen of Hearts variety, above. With its red hearts separated by yellow ribbons, it pairs beautifully with a smaller red variety.

The petunias have been busy this season. They tend to choose appropriate and charming spots for self-planting. Last year I’d positioned a large clay bowl of the flowers atop the stepping stone by a gate. I used it for other plants this year, in a different location. But by June, petunias began sprouting up around the stone, never mind the thin, mulched soil. The seeds from the previous year’s spent flowers simply plant themselves, I’ve learned. And now, without any planning or care on my part, they’re flourishing.

And yes, the squirrels planted two sunflowers among the petunias. (Trying to emulate the practice of our small furry friends, I buried a number of sunflower seeds in July. None of those sprouted.)

If there’s a little room to spare, a petunia or two may move in. Easy-going, if uninvited guests, they’ll adapt to most any accommodation. This bright red petunia made herself at home with a spiky-stemmed Crown of Thorns plant, which bears small, similarly colored blooms.

Petunias are well-equipped for a challenge. Deep within each flower are those tiny seeds, seeds of hope. They’re the promise of new life that lies ahead, even when all might seem lost. The little plant above sprouted from seeds that searched out a smidgen of soil in the grout of our bluestone patio. It’s been sending forth a regular succession of fuchsia and white blossoms since July. When I’m tempted to see the world as a swirling mess of meanness, chaos and confusion, I try to think of this humble yet persistent patio petunia. Even in an inhospitable environment akin to bare, unyielding stone, seeds of hope are constantly being planted. I’ll try to look for the seeds, recognize the sprouts, and do my best to nourish them. Pay attention to the petunia. Like the sunflower, it offers powerful life lessons!

Sunflowers, Squirrel-Planted

If I had no other demands on my time, I could spend an hour or so every day weeding the mulched beds in our back yard around the roses and nandina. Removing the countless maple seedlings alone would keep me occupied. A few years ago, I began noticing some small green shoots that I hadn’t seen before. At first I uprooted them. When one escaped my eye and quickly threw forth lush, fuzzy green leaves, I let it grow. Before long, an interesting bud had formed.

Cradled snugly in the center of a group of emphatically veined leaves, it looked like a small, spiky star.

The bud grew larger, a beautiful thing in itself. Covered by bristly, sharply pointed mini-leaves, it resembled a small artichoke.

Soon, the spiky leaves opened to reveal a sphere covered by yellow petals, their ends gently tucked together at the center. And then I realized: this was a sunflower.

Of course. We’ve made our yard into a haven for birds and squirrels, with multiple feeders, water sources and plenty of scattered seed. We often watch as a squirrel takes a single sunflower seed and buries it, using pointy little fingers to pat down the earth, carefully and thoroughly. According to my husband, this behavior is definitive evidence that I’m providing too much seed. Maybe. But maybe the squirrels simply take pleasure in gardening. They’ve planted pumpkins and acorn squash for us in the past, as well as a flourishing pin oak tree.

Over the past several years, the squirrel-planted sunflowers have become more plentiful, and larger. Each day brings new developments. The bright yellow petals unfold in sections, so that the flower calls to mind a child playing peek-a-boo. The stalks grow taller, thicker and stronger, the leaves bigger.

Apparently I had never examined a live sunflower. I worked from photos when I painted a field of sunflowers not long after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in the late winter of 2022. I hadn’t noticed the distinctive spiral design at the flower’s center. How had I managed to live this long and yet miss such intricate floral majesty? The awesomeness of life’s little miracles continues to amaze me. (And, in a related note–that old Spirograph set I enjoyed as a kid–is it still on the basement shelves among the games? )

I wanted to learn more about these botanical beauties gifted to us by generous squirrel farmers. A sunflower, I know now, is a well-organized community of hundreds of smaller flowers, or florets. What I’ve always thought of as petals are, in fact, individual flowers, or ray florets. Their sunny flamboyance serves to attract pollinators to the many tiny disc florets that compose the center. The disc florets begin opening around the outer periphery, so that the inner spiral is surrounded by a shaggy, deep golden fringe. Each of these florets is a perfect, five-lobed tubular bloom, rather like a lily, sized for a fairy. They will, in time, grow into seeds.

It’s rare to find a sunflower not hosting a pollinator, or two. They’re favorites of these elegant swallow-tail butterflies. In the photo above, I see two friends deep in conversation, as the flower bows its head slightly to greet and accommodate the butterfly.

Carpenter and bumble bees are never far away. They often nestle in and immerse themselves in the luxurious pollen offered by the rounds of disc florets.

Sunflowers are heliotropic: they orient their faces toward the sun. The flowers turn subtly from east to west with the motion of the sun across the sky, and back to the east in the evening to await the coming dawn. Greater sun exposure yields better growth. The sun-following motion occurs in younger flowers. Older ones, heavy-laden with incipient seed, remain east-facing in order to attract more pollinators. In the photo above, the three flowers remind me of medieval and Renaissance paintings depicting the Three Ages of Man. There’s an early bloom, the small child, bursting with pent-up potential. There’s a fully developed blossom, the young adult in her golden, cheerful prime. And then there’s the older flower, an expression of seasoned maturity and a life well-lived. Its large brown seed head teems with successfully pollinated disc florets. Its yellow ray florets may be bedraggled, but that just means they’ve served their purpose.

I’m glad the sunflowers caught my attention and gave me pause. Nature’s everyday masterpieces rarely fail to brighten my day. But that’s not all. When I take the time to look, and to listen, they speak to me of something far greater. Of the marvel of ongoing creation, powered by an all-encompassing presence. A benevolent presence, both immanent and transcendent, defying words and pushing the limits of thought. If I’m quiet, I might sense the whisper of the breath of God that inhabits and flows through everything. Through the sunflower, from squirrel-planted seed, to shoot, to stalk, to flower, and back to seed. Through me. And through you.

We humans could do worse than follow the example of the sunflower. If we seek the light, we’ll have life, and have it more abundantly.

Cristo Vive (Christ is Risen)

May the promise of Easter give you strength and courage to face the trials of this world.   May it bring you inner assurance even during difficult times.  May it inspire you to treat your neighbors (even the difficult ones) with kindness and love.  May it guide you to find glimmers of light in the darkness, and beauty in the everyday.  And may it give you a deep and abiding hope for the life to come, when trials, difficulties and darkness will be no more. 

Happy Easter!

Christ is risen, Christ is living, dry your tears, be unafraid!

Death and darkness could not hold him, nor the tomb in which he lay.

Do not look among the dead for one who lives for evermore;

tell the world that Christ is risen, make it known he goes before.

If the Lord had never risen, we’d have nothing to believe;

but his promise can be trusted: “You will live, because I live.”

As we share the death of Adam, so in Christ we live again;

death has lost its sting and terror, Christ the Lord has come to reign.

Death has lost its old dominion, let the world rejoice and shout!

Christ, the firstborn of the living, gives us life and leads us out.

Let us thank our God, who causes hope to spring up from the ground.

Christ is risen, Christ is giving life eternal, life profound.

Words: Nicolas Martinez, 1960; trans. by Fred Kaan, 1972

(1 Corinthians 15)

Music: Pablo D. Sosa, 1960

Here Again: This Holiest of Weeks

It’s a chilly but beautiful Palm Sunday today here in Northern Virginia, a perfect day for observing the swirl of activity that surrounds our side yard bird feeders. In the bright sunshine, the male cardinals glow brilliantly red, and the subtle shading in the feathers of their female counterparts is particularly apparent. Their beaks are as orange as ripe clementines. A pair of goldfinches, recent arrivals, adds to the palette. The male wears a patchwork of flamboyant, purest yellow and the drab olive green of his mate. The light accentuates the rusty red cap of a tiny, ground-feeding chipping sparrow. The swoop of scarlet on the head of a robust red-bellied woodpecker gleams with near-iridescence. An aptly named golden-crowned kinglet put in a rare, brief appearance, hanging upside down from the new buds on a Japanese maple. Each small, feathered creature is a masterpiece of aesthetics and engineering. To watch their fleeting comings and goings on this dazzling day is to catch a breath full of spring’s celebratory essence. To be reminded that in our flawed and frightening world, filled with wars, guns and discord, it is still possible to savor a sip of joy. And of hope.

Such a reminder is especially appropriate on this first day of Holy Week. Christians across the globe look forward to the triumph of Easter. But first there is this roller-coaster ride of a week, one that begins on Palm Sunday’s jubilant note and plunges to the painful depths of despair on Good Friday. To jump from the high point of Palm Sunday to that of Easter is to miss the point. To do so is to ignore much of what it means to be human, and to be miss out on the marvelous magnitude of grace that is the Easter promise.

Over the past eleven years of Wild Trumpet Vine, I’ve written numerous times about the days of Holy Week. See here for last year’s Palm Sunday post.