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| Image by Ken Douglas |
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A GREETING
You have turned my mourning into dancing;
you have taken off my sackcloth
and clothed me with joy.
(Psalm 30:11)
A READING
For it was you who formed my inward parts;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
that I know very well.
My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes beheld my unformed substance.
In your book were written
all the days that were formed for me,
when none of them as yet existed.
(Psalm 139:13-16)
MUSIC
A MEDITATIVE VERSE
For the Lord does not see as mortals see;
they look on the outward appearance,
but the Lord looks on the heart.’
(1 Samuel 16:7b)
A POEM
The blue bell cannot charm me now
The heath has lost its bloom,
The violets in the glen below
They yield no sweet perfume.
But though I mourn the heather-bell
'Tis better far, away;
I know how fast my tears would swell
To see it smile today;
And that wood flower that hides so shy
Beneath the mossy stone
Its balmy scent and dewy eye:
'Tis not for them I moan.
It is the slight and stately stem,
The blossom's silvery blue,
The buds hid like a sapphire gem
In sheaths of emerald hue.
- Excerpted from "Blue Bell," by Emily Bronte
VERSE OF THE DAY
But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.
(Romans 8:25)
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| Pressed flower and photograph by Janet Benoy. The photographer writes: "This is a pressed larkspur we saved from the family flowers at my father's funeral nearly 20 years ago. It has been in a flower press ever since and is still the most amazing blue." |
Psalm 139 is one of the most famous in the book of Psalms. In it we hear that God has known us and loved us since before we were born, when we were a seed in the belly of our mother, or when we were woven in the deep soil of God’s imagination.
What would it take for us to imagine the psalm being written about a seed that is germinating? How can we hear God tell a seed that it is fearfully and wonderfully made, or that it has been woven in the womb of the earth in a way that only God understands? If we could expand this great psalm to include all of Creation, how might that change our own relationship to the earth and its creatures?
Blue is the colour of Advent, some believe because it represents the colour of the sky at the time of Jesus' birth. The 13th century painter Giotto tried to replicate that colour in his nativity scene. A few centuries later, Vermeer tried it also, using an ultramarine paint in his work that was carted across Europe from Afghanistan, having been crushed out of rare lapis lazuli. The colour blue is extremely rare in nature: less than 10% of all plant species are blue and even so, most of the time their blue is an optical illusion created by the refraction of light against what is actually red pigment. The only plant with genuinely blue leaves lives in the floor of the rainforest in South America. And yet blue flowers are the only flowers that retain their colour in death. All other plant material changes colour when it dies.
In her poem about the bluebells, Emily Bronte uses the word ‘mourn’ to describe the feeling she has in the midst of winter, imagining the bluebells of summer when all around her is icy cold. She grieves that she cannot pull the past or the future into the present; she cannot produce the blue bells out of the air and make them give her the joy they give her in their season. We grieve that which we miss that is part of another season — whether of the year we live in, or the season of life that we find ourselves in. We miss what gives us joy, we are nostalgic for it. In his short verse about hope, however, Paul encourages us to hear that what God hopes for us -- is beyond our ability to know; but still, we can trust that it will be something very good, and can wait for it with patience.
How can we challenge ourselves to hope for what God hopes for us, though we may not know what that is? How easily can we trust God's unceasing desire to promote life in all things?
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A STORY OF COLOUR
In this article in The New York Times (which you can read without a paywall here), scientists describe a project in which they studied how birds perceive colour in the world. The avian view does not see 'blue' in the sky in the way that we do, according to a sensory ecologist. While humans cannot see ultraviolet light, most birds can, rendering a bright sunny day in magenta tones. Whose reality is more true? Is the sky blue or magenta? God's capacity for diversity knows no bounds and extends farther than we can even imagine.
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LC† Seeds of Hope is a project of Lutherans Connect, supported by the Eastern Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada and the Centre for Spirituality and Media at Martin Luther University College. To receive the devotions by email, write to lutheransconnect@gmail.com. The devotional pages are written and curated by Deacon Sherry Coman, with support and input from Pastor Steve Hoffard, Catherine Evenden and Henriette Thompson. Join us on Facebook, and on Twitter. Lutherans Connect invites you to make a donation to the Ministry by going to this link on the website of the ELCIC Eastern Synod and selecting "Lutherans Connect Devotionals" under "Fund". Devotions are always freely offered, however your donations help support the ongoing work.
Thank you and peace be with you!