First Roots, Then Blossoms

I'm standing at the kitchen sink as the bright yellow sunlight streaks across the windowsill in front of me. I check the gardenia cutting--the one that's been sitting in a glass of water for weeks now--for roots.

Not yet. I change the water, remove the lower leaves, and put the cutting back into the glass.

This is going to take weeks.  

It needs roots before I can plant it (although sometimes you can just plant it and wait for root growth if you keep the soil very moist). I have to let the nutrient delivery system grow into place before I can do anything safe with this cutting.

Only then will I plant and wait for the cutting to grow and deliver that particular summer scent of gardenia. It's a Victorian Tea Party kind of fragrance. It's a kind of fragrance that makes you want to mind your manners, slow down, and act a bit refined. I just love that crisp, clean smell.  

The whole discipline and patience of rooting plant cuttings keeps me focused on God's processes in my own life. That certain and absolute reminder that I need strong roots if I'm going to survive settles me down when  I get impatient. First roots. Then blossoms.

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Have you successfully rooted garden cuttings? 

A Thorough Repentance

Last night, the fireworks show begins with a reading of the Declaration of Independence. I'm listening to the voice boom over the loudspeakers across the valley, and I'm deeply aware of the verbs for the first time in my life: dissolve, throw off, absolve. 

I'm hearing it again: We totally dissolve this. We will not tolerate this oppression. We will not. We throw it far away from us. 

I think of how very thorough the breaking away is.  There's no going back.

It's a declaration against what comes against the human spirit. It's a declaration against tyranny. As I sit there in the darkness, I consider my own declarations against that which tyrannizes and comes against everything of God in me. I think about repentance and all the ways I want to turn away from sin and move towards God. 

I consider the thorough language of the Declaration of Independence--the great care, the attention to every detail of oppression--and how strong and forceful it becomes. I want to be that thorough when it comes to anything oppressing me and my family and community. 

I feel courage rising in me. I feel another call to battle, but this time, thorough. I look at encroaching sin, and I sever ties; I dissolve, throw off, absolve, and declare a new allegiance. 

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Have you ever not thoroughly turned from sin and seen how it comes back?  

Also with the Contrite and Lowly

This morning, I read in Isaiah 57 how God "lives in a high and holy place, but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit." 

On a day when we celebrate the greatness and independence of our nation, I wonder about the greatness that comes through the deep sorrow--the contrition--we feel over wrongdoing, injustice, and shortcoming. I wonder about the beauty of lowly spirits that come humbly before God to thank Him for our country, declaring not independence, but absolute dependence, on God's great mercy and love.

We declare dependence with a contrite and lowly spirit.

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Happy 4th of July!