Midlife Meditation

Earth’s crammed with heaven, And every common bush afire with God; But only he who sees, takes off his shoes, The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries, And daub their natural faces unaware         More and more from the first similitude. --Elizabeth Barrett Browning   I'm fairly certain this is my father's favorite poem. At the very least, it's one I heard him quote multiple times in sermons. It's actually a fragment of a much larger work: Aurora Leigh, an epic poem/novel that deals frequently with the intersections of nature, art, and spirituality. I have a suspicion that my father was fond of this passage because it mentions plucking blackberries, an activity he always loved and recruited all of his sons to share with him. Blackberrying was an outdoor pursuit with a tangible reward, so it appealed to both his naturalist impulses and his Puritan work ethic. All of these qualities actually put it in opposition to the Browni...

I love roses. It's easy to be attracted to roses, hard to love them. Roses are particular: they want just the right amount of fertilization; they need frequent watering; they can't be planted close together or in soil vacated by a previous, failed rose; if they're not pruned correctly, they can become as gangly and overgrown as a blackberry bush. And, of course, they have thorns, some of them quite vicious. I have learned the hard way to be careful around roses. The thorns on roses exist for a simple reason: to fend off potential threats. They guarantee that anything larger than a beetle will think twice before attacking a mature rose. Those who wish to enjoy a rose's beauty and aroma in the safety of their own homes must take great care in removing the stem from which the trophy flower bursts forth, or risk punctures which could easily become infected. As particular as roses can be, they're a hardy flower. Other beauties of the plant kingdom last for weeks...