Disturbed Earth

The Celebration of Life Recording for Chris Rhoden can be found HERE. Thank you to all those who so generously contributed to a beautiful ceremony that spoke to the true character of Chris and the life of love he led. I could not have done it without each of you and am extremely grateful. For those of you in attendance, please accept our families’ sincerest gratitude for your presence. Your thoughtfulness and kindness brought us and continues to bring us tremendous comfort.

A column written for the Richmonder by good friend Tom Allen can also be found HERE

Dear friend,

Mercutio spoke to me the other day. Did you hear his pleads among the light blue vested grub worms cloaked in tulle? Or, maybe, you felt the tickle of a five hearted wriggle worm gasping for air after a rainstorm? I’m speaking to the earth now as Job did, so you may teach me once again, O Captain, My Captain. I’m wondering what the rich soil of eternal life is like with its diamond hard blades of grass. Have you gained new senses to see and hear the fluffy Palooski birds? Are the cafe au lait lions eating straw? Lately, I’ve been hacking at Margaret Atwood’s “Disturbed Earth” where weeds snake back underground and thrust their fleshy prickled snouts in where you intended hostas. Fighting the push to move forward, but pulling up on the notion to wallow. The wiry crabgrass of grief is strong and often snags my shoelaces.

It’s cool and damp within the Garden where it isn’t good for man to be alone. And, here I am alone. But, not. God shuffles in with rusted buckled Birkenstocks and asks, “Where are you?” Today, I glance at Him, push the garden gate ajar after being gone a while and weep. Not the guttural clenching of the throat crying, but the David Whyte “Weeping” where it is

a state of temporary enlightenment: the physically felt edge between a previously fixed presence and the sudden traumatic transformation of the fixedness, into movement, into acknowledgment, …weeping is often the most physical, and authentic conversation we will ever hold in our life or in the world we inhabit:

I hold that conversation among several hundred people without them knowing. Arms shouldered together with my Oremus wristed daughter, I weep and release, and it finishes, and I am enlightened to the fact that the Church is the exact place to sow my tears; tears which will result in joy one day because of the investment of these tears and not just the dumping of and waiting for the tears to go away.

2nd Corinthians 16 says, “Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.” Outwardly, I weep, but inwardly, my scorched heart layer begins peeling away and revealing a soft underbelly.

Hey! Did I mention our flower friend came over this week? Remember when we had our chicken salad boats and zested lemon bars and painted the yard with color? You dreamed of finches gathering for poker and peanuts amidst flower studded mulch beds and soldier straight stalks of lilies. Well, our garden goddess graced the space with iris and begonias and ferns. Other friends have started gathering, too. We have Susans and Margarets and Allisons huddled in shady places where the petals tan in the sunlight just before moving into the shade for respite. Isn’t it fabulous to think of our friends and community surrounding us nightly under the sequins studded sky listening to the northern cardinals call?

St Porphyrios, a Greek saint, and one of Paul Kingsnorth’s favorites(which would make it one of your favorites, too) said this about flowers and surroundings:

Rejoice over everything which surrounds you. All things teach us of God, all things lead us to God: Living and lifeless beings, plants and animals, animals, and birds, mountains and seas, the sunset and the starry sky. Through the small loves, we come to the great love, which is Christ. The flowers, for example, have a special grace: they teach us with their perfume and their magnificence. They speak to us of the love of God. They spread out their odours and their beauty over the just and the unjust alike.

Our garden is beginning in loveliness and beauty. It’s neat and tidy and full of grace and small loves because, that’s what beginnings are. And, that’s where you’ll find me…..in the garden…..beginning.

Always with,

K