These are deeply unsettling times we are living in, aren’t they? They make us yearn for a sense of solidity and thirst for a firm grounding beneath our feet. Perhaps it exists as a present reality, closer at hand than we might think.
Creation breathes out its beauty and begs us to receive it as soul food, as a nurturing balm to help us stay grounded and calm. Each time we pay attention to growing flowers and plants we get to observe how nature deals with its own seasons of alteration and loss.
In the tanka sequence poem below, I invite you to take a journey of the heart, a pause to consider what nature has to teach us now, what lies ahead, and how we are all connected to the past.
May you receive an awakening of hope and faith that will help ground you in the realest of realities. Namely that God is still in charge, and all things are somehow being worked out for good even as our lives feel shaken to the core.
Reality
what is real
is the soil beneath our feet
solidity
earth grounds us, holds us fast
when all else trembles into dust
the imprints
markers of every man
woman and child
who ever lived and died
are seeded, left behind
the earth
holds all our memories
in its DNA
it doesn’t forget how we lived
breathed and walked this way
every acreage
in the changing landscape
holds a legacy
it will keep the faith for us
when we are lost, faithless
nature sings
an eternal siren song
we strain to listen
unaccustomed to its melody
the way it reverberates and speaks
our reality
is so often shaped by lust
fuelled by greed
hot desire can set us on fire
we lose what we have coveted
we don’t need
all that much to survive
we do need
the insight to understand
just how to live, grow and thrive
the natural world
provides all our necessities
all we need to live
enough resources to share
if we were generous and fair
the ethereal
the mystical, intangible
lies within our reach
it’s already invaded earth
promising us new life, new birth
our souls
rooted to earth’s reality
become whole
when they are connected
to Father, Son, Holy Spirit
God made
all that is sensed and found
he gave
his life to open our eyes
to the unlimited beyond
© joylenton
“The calm of a summer night
embodies Your peace, O Lord.
The beauty of a sunset
embodies Your truth, O Lord.
Everything in all creation
shouts the reality of You.”— Transformed by Love: Prayers and Reflections for All Seasons by Liz Babbs
Poetry Joy 