[SB] Sabbath Blessing

[Molly Wolf]

Scillas

Or should it be scillae? No doubt someone will tell me. Whatever they're 
called, they are blooming right now, tiny simple flowers hanging gracefully 
from their bent stalks, spreading a vibrant blue in a landscape still dun 
and quiet.  Scillas are to blue as dandelions (also starting to bloom) are 
to yellow, and both speak to me of joy.

We seem to have missed Spring Mud Season this year. The snow ended meekly 
and abruptly in early March; since then there have been few days sodden 
with rain or damp and cutting. Instead, we've had a quiet pleasant time 
with beautiful blue skies and stronger sun. There's been none of that 
push-pull between winter and spring, only a steady gentle movement, one you 
can enjoy with no desire to hurry it along. The songbirds are back and the 
geese have overflown and headed north, and now the leaf-buds are adding 
lace to the trees' bare branches.

And the scillas are out. Unlike the crocii (also in bloom), scillas have 
one great virtue, at least in my book: they make a break for it. They 
self-seed. Since they bloom and die back long before the grass is ready to 
mow, they spread freely wherever people don't use weed poisons. You see 
yards around town with whole stretches of blue, as though earth had caught, 
intensified, and beamed back the sky's richest colour. You see dots of blue 
under hedges, making up for the garbage accumulated through a winter's 
carelessness. You see small patches of blue sneaking from one planted 
garden into a neighbour's side yard.  Scillas, however individually tiny 
and modest, are ready to explore the possibilities.

If I could praise one type of faith, it would probably look like scillas. 
It wouldn't necessarily be large and complicated and theologically 
elaborate (although I am just as fond of peonies); it could be quite small 
and simple, but persistent. Above all, it wouldn't want to be contained. 
Sunday mornings wouldn't be enough for this kind of faith; it would insist 
on creeping throughout the week, finding spots to flourish. It would 
operate boldly and in trust, not fearing whatever lawnmowers might be in 
the future, because what matters is the moment's flowering and the setting 
of seed. It would see no boundary between garden and lawn, between 
cultivated and wild; it would plant itself wherever it had a chance and do 
its best to spread.

What keeps this from happening more than it does? Our own choices: our 
desire for power and control, our pride, our refusal to accept that maybe 
we don't have all the answers, our fearfulness, our denial. If rue is the 
herb of grace, these are grace's herbicides. Strangely, pain isn't 
herbicidal at all -- in fact, it can be a fertilizer of sort. It's more 
likely the refusal of pain that keeps grace from flourishing.

Above all, what keeps grace from spreading is our refusal of the 
possibility.  To have faith like scillas goes so strongly against what 
we've been trained up to accept -- the need for prudence, control, 
boundaries, limitations. And of course these are important and often 
essential things if we're to operate in real life. Gardens *do* need 
weeding. Without setting boundaries, for example, we invite others to treat 
us like doormats, an invitation people are strangely ready to take us up on.

But we forget that God isn't people and people aren't God. God is the 
ultimate safe place. God is where we can be our souls' fullest selves 
because God created our souls and loves his creation. That's why faith can 
seed itself like scillas, fearlessly, boldly, playfully, taking over the 
landscape, beaming joy back at the heavens.

I think I'm going to take this idea away and chew on it for a while. But I 
also think I'm going to put on my sneakers and get out there for a good 
long walk. Scillas don't last long, and I'd hate to waste a minute.



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I'm about to hit some sacred cows, and they moo so badly. -- Phyllis 
Tickle, aka The Divine Miz T.