Witch Hazel and Saint Isaac's Encouragement

When you attain to the region of tears,
 then know that your mind has left the prison of this world 
and has set its foot on the roadway of the new age. 
St. Isaac the Syrian

During last week's winter weather, I went out into my garden to make this short video of the snow coming down on the coppery -orange Witch Hazel which is blooming profusely in February. Notice how the snow looks like bits of silver foil. The sound you hear is a nearby stream. Have you ever been stopped by somethng so beautiful it moves you to tears? St. Isaac sees the deep value of those moments.

The saint writes, "When you attain..." The word attain comes from the Latin attingere—to touch.  So, "When you touch the region of tears..." What's that? It is that inner space where we are capable of the deepest sense-ing and silent appreciation. The region of tears, is the capacity (the power?) we have for feeling. Many people never cultivate that capacity, or they equate it with sentiment rather than deep looking, listening and discovering. 

And when you touch the region of tears, know that you have left the prison of this world.  What's that? It's our bubble-world of endless opinionating; our world of aggression; of selling and scheming to buy, get and own; the prison of our prestige, our pride-world; the superficial laugh-a-thon world; the prison which looks away, which chooses to stay ignorant—even comfortably stupid; our eating—like grazing, our cult-world of personalities and power; of living by violence and planet destruction for our greed. 

And has set its foot on the roadway of the new age. What is this new age? Jesus proclaims God's kingdom, which is my life, indeed, this very moment of my life, synchronized with the heartbeat of God. I want to live in that. St. Paul writes: 

"My brothers and sisters, I need only add this. If you believe in goodness and if you value the approval of God, fix your minds on whatever is true and  honourable and just and pure and lovely and admirable." 

My prayer for you (and myself) this week: May you come upon your own Witch Hazel-in-Snow moment, something so good and lovely that your "region of tears" is touched.

Planting Hamamelis intermedia "Jelena"

I planted a Witch Hazel tree today with the pretty name Jelena. Here's how the  catalog describes this February-March bloomer:

This is a favorite of ours for bringing color to winter gardens. The large ribbon-like petals gleam copper orange, and in autumn, the shrub lights up again as its green leaves turn fiery shades of red and yellow.

Winters can be hard here. One long time resident told me that her family had a large Mother's Day barbecue-picnic where they kept the beer and soda cold in the snow under a tree.  

Digging a suitable hole for any tree is a many-houred task. The old saying about the soil in these parts is: For every piece of dirt there's three rocks. I used a car jack once to dislodge a boulder from the ground.

When the hole is dug and the augmented and de-rocked soil pulled back around the roots, it's time for a short prayer. Bless you, little tree. May you be safe and happy here. May you flourish according to God's design. That's a nice prayer to pray for people as well.

~ ~ ~ 

But I'm also prompted to ask myself and the readers of this post: We all plant ourselves in something. What are you planted in?

A Christian ought to be firmly planted and rooted in the Gospels. Many Christians, including clergy, are more planted in churchman-ship which is not the same as the Gospels. Churchman-ship means being busy about parochial things: church committee meetings, church finances, dogma-fighting bloggers, church connections, inside church information. For the clergy: power, recognition, clerical maneuvering and ladder climbing. 

It would require a tremendous self-awareness and honesty before Christ to acknowledge being rooted in nationalism. Nation before Christ. And it's not just politicians who are nationalists more than they are Christians. People who are plugged into certain TV and radio stations can have a bad case. Militarism often goes hand in hand with nationalism. Scary how many Christians there are who are itching to send young people to war. They distance themselves from the horror of it by the use of the casually tossed off phrase: Boots on the ground.

Or to be rooted in consumerism. Our country is all over the planet and it's not all about wanting everyone to share in our freedoms and form of government. Are wars being fought so we can secure or protect the precious metals needed for us to maintain and advance our computer and media centered life-style?

I mentioned in a sermon once that many Christians know their bank books better than their bibles. One honest fellow stopped me afterwards, nearly in tears, that he had never thought about his life that way before. 

We never have to leave our homes to spend the entire day shopping as the products sold on commercial television seem to be getting more and more ridiculous. Are diseases being invented just so we can buy the remedy? Thomas Merton wrote in the 1960's of the foolish trap even a monastery can fall into being known more for the beer, wine, cheese, jelly and vestments it produces than for the depth-holiness of its monks.

Or I can be planted in resentment, anger, addictions, projecting anxieties. I expect Jelena will flourish - blooming prettily in February-March because she's been carefully and well-planted. But how about it?

God's Visitation

Witch Hazel in Snow

THE WORD VISIT COMES FROM THE LATIN visitare: to go to see. And visere: to behold. And yet again videre: to see, to notice, to observe. 

I like to behold the best. When I was a new priest on Long Island in the winter of 1980, I received a flyer from The Planting Fields Arboretum in Oyster Bay - a kind of heads up not to miss the outdoor winter events that might be overlooked in the cold time. "Come and see the Witch Hazel tree that's due to bloom in January."

As a young boy, planting a purple Columbine with my mother in the sandy Long Island soil delighted me. And I remember the happy discovery of a Jack in the Pulpit blooming in the wooded area behind our house. The idea of a tree blooming in January intrigued me, and so I set out.

It was a typical Long Island winter day: low sky, damp and gray with some snow cover. Following the little map offered at the gatehouse, I made my way around the trails until I found it. The tree was young, not yet six foot tall, but fully branched and indeed, (I could see even from a distance) it was covered with yellow flowers. Stepping closer, the air was filled with its perfume. Garden books and catalogs describe the scent as heady and intoxicating. I might as well have been standing with Moses before the Burning Bush. Thirty-four years later the memory of this visitation comes to me every January.

Perhaps we are losing our sense of visit or visitation because of the quick and often surfacey communicating that occurs via technology now. But not too long ago our lives were filled with the pleasures or requirements of visiting:

• We might visit someone in a nursing home. Older folks lament not being visited. People are too busy.
• Catholics over 50 will remember phrases like let's visit the church or visit the Blessed Sacrament.
• The Sunday visiting of relatives was once an important aspect of American culture.
• A nun would receive people in a visitor's parlor.
• Years ago we might pay a visit to a neighbor or
• Visit a funeral home - paying our respects.
• Do we use the phrase visiting a website?

But now stepping into Ordinary Time (what used to be called the Sundays after Epiphany) we've completed the time of celebrating God's Visitation in Jesus of Bethlehem.  There are two lovely verses found in St. Luke's Gospel that call this to mind:

At the circumcision of his son, John (the Baptist), Zechariah spoke this prophecy: "Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, for he has visited his people and set them free and he has established for us a saving power..." (Luke 1:68)

And after the raising of the widow's son at Nain, "Everyone was filled with awe and glorified God saying, 'A great prophet has risen up among us; God has visited his people,'" (Luke 7:16)

But God visits still and not just in church. We might be on the look out! Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote: 

Earth's crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God,
But only he who sees takes off his shoes;
The rest sit round and pluck blackberries.