[SB] Sabbath Blessing

[Molly Wolf]

The Peony

Of course if I'd did what I was supposed to do when I was supposed to do 
it, the whole situation would never have arisen. I should have put its 
supporting wire cage around my young peony plant back there in early May, 
when the plant was still emerging and the buds hadn't formed.  But I didn't 
get around to it until Tuesday, by which time the buds were far advanced 
and their stalks were strong -- and, as it turned out, more brittle than I 
thought. In the course of tucking plant into cage, I broke off one of the 
stalks a few inches below the bud.

This is not, in the great scheme of things, much of an event, but it was to 
me. I planted this peony three years ago. Peonies take their time to settle 
in, and this is the first year it's flowered -- six buds! -- and I do love 
peonies. I swore gently and laid the broken-off bud aside, and finished 
peony-tucking, and then the phone rang and I completely forgot about the 
bud. On Wednesday, installing a couple of columbines in the same garden 
bed, I found the bud again and on a whim, I brought it into the kitchen, 
trimmed the stalk, and put the bud in a glass of water. It was still green 
and tightly furled, and I figured it probably wouldn't do anything, but it 
couldn't hurt to try.

As I type, the peony is sitting on my desk next to my keyboard, fully 
unfurled, radiantly pink and splendid and scented. It bloomed.

This seems like a miracle to me, but of course it isn't; it's sheer 
biological determination. Peonies won't flower until they're ready, and 
when they're ready they're unstoppable.  An established bed of peonies is 
the floral equivalent of the Energizer Bunny. Right now my neighbourhood is 
awash in the things, and they are a glory.

It seems to me, looking at my peony, that this flower is very much like the 
truly Godward-looking soul; it's determined to become all it can be. Not 
all religious people are, of course, really Godward-looking -- just 
consider the seventeen silly, tragically misguided young men who were 
arrested in Toronto last week for planning terrorist acts. They may call 
piously upon the name of Allah, but they had been charging off in all the 
wrong directions. The god they turned to is not Allah but a godlet designed 
in anger and hate.

All of us know people who are devoutly faithful and see nothing wrong with 
abusing or manipulating or exploiting others to their own ends, and don't 
see any problem with this combination, however crazy it makes anyone who 
watches them. This is because the word "integration" is not in their 
vocabulary.

But if we truly turn Godward, that drive towards integration is as powerful 
in us as the drive to bloom was in this peony; it won't be denied. It's the 
mark of real spiritual health, I believe -- the need to bring what we 
believe and what we practice into true alignment. It's the source of 
healthy humility, because we never do quite manage to get them perfectly in 
synch; God is too good, and we are too human.  It's what keeps us clinging 
to faith even when faith looks very difficult. It's what keeps turning us 
back, over and over again, to struggle hard with Scripture. It's what calls 
us into loving others. It's why a reasonable sense of sin is inherently 
healthy, as pain is a healthy response to injury -- a signal that 
something's wrong and needs to be dealt with. It's where we get our 
strength. It's what pushes us out into the world proclaiming the need for 
justice and compassion for all Creation. This drive towards integration 
means that every bit of my life needs to answer to faith. It's not always 
convenient, and I screw up with painful frequency, but it's something I can 
no more help than this bud could help flowering when I put it in water.

I've always thought of the Holy Spirit as being like a magnet (to change 
metaphors): a small piece of that magnet lives inside me, and it's drawn 
ineluctably to the huge magnet that is the Spirit of God, and the draw 
keeps me moving in the right direction, more or less -- the direction 
towards healing, growth, and flourishing, as this peony is flourishing. It 
tugs me out from the shadows of a gnarled and tangled past and into what 
looks very much like joy.

The peony *is* a miracle -- the miracle of sheer fearless life-seeking 
determination, which (to my mind) is what integrity is all about. In a few 
days, of course, it will finish its blooming and start to fade and die -- 
but it's only a peony, not a soul. Our souls, I believe, continue in the 
paths we've chosen for them, towards God or off in other directions, at 
least in this life, because we've got the freedom to do that. In the life 
to come, who knows? But I bet that land, for which I long, is full of 
peonies.