This game of thorns can become scratch marks!  Saturday Margaret and I were pruning fruit trees and treating them with lime in preparation for spring.  The fruit trees have this submissive way of honouring care.  Each bit of new growth pruned back to the outside facing bud.  Then the rose garden showed up!  The Genesis account of thorns and thistles was delivered with a pharasaic punch.  Thorns scratch forearms and puncture gnarled hands.  There is no easy way!  Then I was reminded that this was more than an ordinary garden.  My friend Dennis reminded me that trees were planted for the healing of the nations.  He also said some Psalm One stuff about being planted near flowing rivers and bearing fruit when ready.  The fruit trees in the Last Door orchard are a few years away from bearing fruit.  The thorns are cursedly sharp.  Sitting in church I kept thinking about the Mitchell translation of Psalm One… “Blessed are the man and woman who have grown beyond their greed and have put an end to their hatred and no longer nourish illusions…”  Margaret is learning the silencing wave… The moment when we can delight in the way things are!

I would like to spend more time by flowing rivers or fountains….

We will gladly step into line and wander in an ever growing stream of those who keep their hearts open day and night.  When the fruit trees and the roses grow in the same garden, acceptance of their beauty with and without fruit makes living as a wandering pilgrim more than a dream — the scars are liberating, redemptive and evidence of healing.  Scratch and win is not a lottery — rather it is a way of life!