Pinecone

 

Die Welt muß romantisiert werden . . . Indem ich dem Gemeinen einen hohen Sinn, dem Gewöhnlichen ein geheimnisvolles Ansehn, dem Bekannten die Würde des Unbekannten, dem Endlichen einen unendlichen Schein gebe, so romantisiere ich es. 

The world must be romanticized . . . By giving the common a lofty meaning, the ordinary a mysterious status, the known, the dignity of the unknown, the finite an infinite appearance, I romanticize it.

                                                                    --Novalis, Logologische Fragmente I

I remember the first time I studied a pinecone, when I was just a small child.  It was in a city park.  I had never seen one before, and I was awed by its beauty, symmetry, combination of simplicity and intricacy, its patterns and colors, its perfection.  This wonderful object of nature embodied all the miraculous mystery and the magnificence of life that only a child would understand.  It mirrored the entire creation, all that was seen and unseen, said and unsaid.  A pinecone--or the universe.

God, Singing

The Lord has removed the judgment against you,

he has turned away your enemies;

The King of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst,

you have no further misfortune to fear.

 

On that day, it shall be said to Jerusalem:

Do not fear, Zion,

do not be discouraged!

The Lord, your God, is in your midst,

a mighty savior,

Who will rejoice over you with gladness,

and renew you in his love,

Who will sing joyfully because of you,

as on festival days.      

                       Zephaniah 3:15-18a

Hiroshima Day

 Whenever I remember Hiroshima, the first image that comes to mind is of my four-year-old nephew, Eiji – his little body transformed into an unrecognizable melted chunk of flesh. He kept begging for water in a faint voice until his death released him from agony.

     To me, he came to represent all the innocent children of the world, threatened as they are at this very moment by nuclear weapons. Every second of every day, nuclear weapons endanger everyone we love and everything we hold dear. We must not tolerate this insanity any longer.

     Through our agony and the sheer struggle to survive – and to rebuild our lives from the ashes – we hibakusha became convinced that we must warn the world about these apocalyptic weapons. Time and again, we shared our testimonies.

      . . . Nine nations still threaten to incinerate entire cities, to destroy life on earth, to make our beautiful world uninhabitable for future generations. The development of nuclear weapons signifies not a country’s elevation to greatness, but its descent to the darkest depths of depravity. These weapons are not a necessary evil; they are the ultimate evil.

--Setsuko Thurlow, Hiroshima survivor, Nobel Prize acceptance speech on behalf of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons

Mid-Summer Evening

For when one considers the universe, can anyone be so simple-minded as not to believe that the Divine is present in everything, pervading, embracing and penetrating it?

--St. Gregory of Nyssa

The mid-summer evening light, inexpressibly golden, blue shadows, the radiance of red and yellow sunflowers and the solemn, conciliatory cypresses.  Ripeness, after the rains, under a dappled sky.  As if kindness shades nature itself: all the simple shapes of the garden, the neighborhood.  A time of healing, of forgiveness, of restoration.  A time for believing all things, trusting in all things, hoping all things.  A time of silence and contemplation, emptiness, and the fullness of grace.  Silence.