Summer garden

 

I have just got back from a wonderful trip to England and Scotland. We got to see my niece Molly graduate from her primary school and was so glad to be a part of that. The joy and sadness of long distance family!
 It rained every day in Scotland, but was a fantastic experience. Thanks to our good friend Trish Jones, who was our tour guide par excellence, generous host and she even found me a doctor when I got sick. We are truly blessed to have such a good friend as part of our life. This is a picture of a Great Blue Heron taken on the river behind Trish's home at Bridge of Allan.
 As I said it was a wonderful trip, with lots of wonderful memories and we traced both our family roots. All of which are Scottish on Wendy's side and also mostly on mine, much to my surprise.

 Summer Flowers in bloom, bee's everywhere.

I got home just yesterday and am still jet lagged but have spent much of the day in my summer garden. My daughters watered it while I was away, (thank you, thank you) but still, with this heat it was a dry place when I got home.
A garden in late July is quieter then spring. The birds are far less vocal, the burst of spring green has faded to a more sedate colour, but the garden is in its summer glory.

Purple Cone Flowers

My cone flowers are in full bloom, as is my bee balm, daisy's and butterfly bush. And the first harvest is in, tomatoes and my first purple carrot! Some of potatoes have all died back and I just picked the first of them. I will plant beans, peas and carrots in the empty spaces, so I should get a second harvest in the fall.

A summer garden also means that a lot of the work is behind you, its time to sit back and literally smell the roses. We live in a culture that doesn't encourage just sitting and looking, but that's what I did this morning. Just sat and watched and listened to my garden. One of the gifts of my sabbatical has been the time to sit and think and pray in my garden. I now know this patch of earth and its plants and other inhabitants in a much deeper way then I ever have before. That's the gift of sitting, watching and thinking. This process leads to questioning and learning  It is the same with the church, I have been so busy doing church that I haven't had time to ask the question about what the church should actually be in this time. I am still thinking about that, a lot. And my thoughts are leading me to a very different place from the current status quo. My research and reflection continue, and I sit in my garden and listen to what creation has to say to me.

Water

I love water, especially the sound of water that is running or falling, so I am thrilled with our new garden addition, this four tiered fountain. We got this because of some renovations we had done by Rona. They showered us with gift cards and so card in hand I descended into deepest Scarborough to transport this back to Whitby. It is truly amazing what you can get into a Focus hatchback! We got it home, loaded it into the wheel barrow and cautiously  wheeled it to the patio, unloaded it, filled it up with water, plugged it in and voila, my own miniature Niagara Falls, without the barrel. I have had a grin on my face ever since. Right now I am at the dining room table and I can still hear it, gurgling, splashing, just a sound of sheer joy for me. Closest thing I will ever have to a full blown water fall in my backyard.
The sound of running water is very soothing to us human beings. If you Google 'water fall sounds' you get pages and pages of waterfall sounds to help you sleep. I just happily sit outside and read and write or garden with running water as my sound track. I tried in vain in two different ways to embed a sound file from the fountain, if anyone has tips on how to do that I would love to know!

 

 

 

 

We are all stressed out and seeking some peace in the chaos. Whether its a lake, a river, an ocean, a desk top water feature or a fountain in the backyard, we all need something that calms the heart and reduces the constant fight or flight state that far too many of us are in today. For me, just listening to this makes me ridiculously happy. I'm sure it will look great in my office through the winter... I'm only half kidding about that :-)

Bees

 If you look very carefully at the top flower you can see a honey bee. I saw this from my dining room window this morning and was so excited that I ran outside with my phone to take this picture. This is the first honey bee I've spotted so far this year, I've seen lots of bumble bees, but no other honey bees. I've planted a wide variety of flowers to attract pollinators, because well, I'm fond of eating. No pollinators means no food which to me is a fairly clear line. There is no question that bees are under stress and the cause is creating a great debate. Is it mites,  neonicotinoid pesticides, habitat loss or all of it or something else? Some suggest a rebound is on the way. But for me I'll trust the people who look after bees, you can go to http://www.ontariobee.com/ and learn what bee keepers themselves have to say. I think we all have a role to play in our gardens or balconys, we can plant flowers that attract pollinators from early spring to late fall to support species we all count on to help feed our planet.

Bee central, my front flower bed

 

 The same is true in all aspects of our lives, what role do we play to give life to others? What do we plant to sustain those we love, those we work with or are our neighbours? Everything is interlinked, nothing we do happens in isolation.

My daughter Sarah, just posted in her blog a beautiful tribute to my garden. Here's the link
http://findingthemasterpieceinthemess.blogspot.ca/2015/07/my-dads-garden.html

Pilgrimage

  I can't believe that its been a month since I last posted, but when you are on a pilgrimage you tend to lose track of time. And this sabbatical is definitely turning out to be a pilgrimage. A pilgrimage is said to be a journey to a sacred place or shrine, its supposed to be long and I suspect arduous like when people travel the Camino. While I haven't walked for weeks and weeks, I have been on a journey, one that has been arduous in its own way. I have visited many churches, including travelling to Calgary to spend time at Hillhurst United, spoken to colleagues and read numerous books and have written up all of my visits to date. Of course the whole point of a pilgrimage is to be changed, to be open to what the Spirit is trying to tell you, to stop your regular routine and listen for God. I've been listening very hard, learning lots and not always been happy with what I've discovered.


Milk weed waiting for a Monarch butterfly

  My conclusion to date? Things are worse for the wider church then I thought and changing faster then I knew. Not the most cheerful of realizations. However, you can't move forward until you look the truth straight in the eye and face it. Having said this I am strangely not at all discouraged, but energized; we are after all a resurrection people. We have a lot of experience of the church dying and then rising with new life. But we can't rise unless we accept that much of what we have known is passing away and we will need to find different ways for people to encounter the holy, then the ones we have known and loved. I am also encouraged by the faith and courage of the churches I've visited and how they are responding to the challenges we all face.
So what will the future look like? I'll have lots of suggestions at the end of my sabbatical, but I want to give you a gardening metaphor.


Not quite enough to make wine... yet
 

 I have recently discovered the writings of Diana Beresford-Kroeger, she is a botanist, medical and agricultural researcher and a self described 'renegade scientist'. She also is doing all she can to resist  climate change. She believes that gardens of all shapes and sizes can make a difference for the planet. The key to gardens functioning this way is the creation of what she terms "the bioplan". The bioplan is simply realigning the garden to encourage its use as a natural habitat, it is a "blueprint for all connectivity of life in nature". It exists in complete harmony; there are trees and a kitchen garden

 Water both for the birds and insects

and shrubs for the birds that provide shelter and food, air ways for the birds to fly through, lawn for them to land on and flowers that bloom through the seasons.



  The key is that everything functions in balance and harmony as nature intended, no matter the size of your garden, everyone  can use a bioplan. You see each part of the bioplan supports the other, lose one part and everything is off balance. Essentially, I am saying we need a bioplan for the church. A balance of experiences, integrative worship, conversation, education, transformative engagement within the church and the wider community and social justice actions that give life to others and ourselves.
When I walked through my garden late this afternoon I realized that I had unintentionally created a bioplan, the pictures in this blog came from my garden and I have different eco systems in different places, but it all works together,  (except I now think we need a small pond!).
That's what  we are actually already beginning to create at my church, but it will need more work to get the balance right. But we have started and that's something very important.




snow pea