GROWING

week 6 | april 26 - may 3

GROWING

It is a marvel and a mystery that all things grow. Our wild places, our hearts, and our bodies are not static, they are dynamic. All living things grow and shift and change with the seasons. Some seasons are sweet and nourishing, and others are harsh and trying. In this stage of our adjustment to “life in response to a pandemic” we may begin to notice new (but perhaps still fragile) growth in our own lives, perhaps in unlikely places. In this week’s installment of the Cross Creativity Project we see what is growing in our gardens, we read what it means to grow old, we can almost smell fresh sourdough bread, we consider what it is to nurture the growth of children, and more.

Desert Plants

Anika Lang

water color

Even with a small amount of water, these plants show us the tenacity for life and growth.

Around My Yard

Annmarie Pickens

photography

Cherished Garden

Ann Zilka

Raised garden
Endless rows
Tall and straight
Mine to grow

Sown elsewhere
Once small seeds
Gathered fields of
Flowers and weeds

Heirloom stories
Layered trees
Folded petals
Turned leaves

Age old questions,
Timeless plots
He loves me
He loves me not

Bouquets arranged
Blossoms pressed
‘Tween slender sheets
Fairies rest

No sun or rain
Nor soil needed
Never watered
Rarely weeded

Chosen, opened
Picked with care
Strewn about
Here and there

Cherished garden
Overgrown
Lo’ the many
Books I own

Magnolia

Lottie Ruch

photography

Struggle

John Hardacker

photography

Sometimes, growth comes when you push through the remnants of the past

Growth

Stephen Hunt

Some say that history grows in cycles  
Others see a line    
The rings of the pine do not lie
Silent spectators of centuries cry 

What is the testimony of these ancient witnesses?
The ruse and folly, the despot’s blind ambition  
The senseless loss and weary fight
Who is Solomon’s man?
The head bowed 
who listens more than speaks
The reed bruised in hollowed light   

What’s Been Growing at Our House?

Tim Keuning (and Danny too)

Welcome Green

Cheryl Witham

I love growing things.  I love the surprise of spring that brings the bursting of bulbs planted in the fall, hidden through the winter, now showing forth the magic called by the sun’s warmth.  

“Wake-up!  It is time to show yourself beautiful. Push through the ground. Stretch your limbs toward the light.  Bloom, lift your faces, explode your color.  Contribute your part in the glory that has been kept through winter’s rest.” 

I find myself giddy with delight, as trees dot the country-side with flower and fragrance.   
“Cherry, dogwood, red-bud, apple, azalea, rhododendron and lilac fill the woods and orchards, line the parkways and perfume the air.  Risk the brief moment that is yours.  Show forth all the beauty that is within you.”

This year, more than others I have found myself celebrating the beauty of creation’s covering. We migrated across the country as the drama of spring began again to fill the earth.  Leaving home, where a long winter had stayed the green and growth of spring, husband and I entered days delighting in the lush vegetation of the Maryland, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Washington D.C. We marveled over ancient giant sycamores, thick forests woven with vines, and rolling fields of green, hidden valleys and blue ridged mountains.  We wandered through the magnificent manicured gardens and conservatory of Dupont’s Longwood.  I was accused of “zone envy” as I had my picture taken with fox-glove growing 6 feet high and stood dizzy among the wisteria hanging in lush clusters like spring grapes.  In awe I considered Creator.  

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New Life in the Garden

Jamie Kaihoi

photography

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Growth

Pam Keske

Growth
In the dark
For a long time
Waiting for light but no light came
Waiting for hope but met only disappointment
Waiting for an end but just more of the same.
Loss upon loss, death upon death.

When the darkness couldn’t have gotten darker
A sliver of something
A whisper from some where Just a breath, just a feather.

Then, without much warning
a floodgate broken a torrent rushed in
So fast I could not catch my breath
Hardly time to stop to say thank you.

Now, as the rush turns to a river
And the days become blessedly ordinary
Color is sparked Beauty is ignited
Creativity returns
And gratitude leaks out slowly, daily, continually.
The darkness will come again, that’s what happens with seasons,
But right now, it is spring.

Growth

Pam Keske

oil pasdtels

Growing Family

Heather Ogren

photography

Flowers given in celebration of our family growing with Mia’s arrival-given by a kind grocer.

Front Garden

Lorri Eiswald

photography

Hallowed Be Your Name

Daniel Reynolds

Our Father in Heaven,
Hallowed be Your name.

May Your name be magnified,
On earth as it is in Heaven.

May Your fame unfurl, unfettered,
On earth as it is in Heaven,

Echoing from sky to sky,
On earth as it is in Heaven.

May Your saints be filled with joy,
On earth as it is in Heaven.

May their mouths be filled with praise,
On earth as it is in Heaven,

Ever rising, never ceasing,
On earth as is in Heaven.

May Your kingdom come,
Your will be done,

On earth
As it is
In Heaven.

Rooted

Eric & Becky Galstad

photography

Jeremiah 17:5 Thus says the Lord: “Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart turns away from the Lord. 6 He is like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see any good come. He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land. 7 “Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. 8 He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit.”

Growing Pearls

Melody Villars

I am getting older; I have lived sixty-five years . . .
In laughter and in sorrow, I have cried so many tears.
As I look back, it seems God in His Wisdom did ordain
That with manifold blessings, still there would always be pain.

I think of how an oyster, pierced by shrapnel sharp and hard,
Bathes the irritation, builds a shell around the shard.
As this creature of the sea its wounds enwraps, enfurls,
It transforms the points of pain into precious pearls.

So like the oyster comes a transformation in my soul,
As suffering illuminates the pathway to be whole.
And by the time my pain becomes a pearl with radiant glow,
Despair and hurt have faded; healing now I know.

My tears of sorrow and lament have bathed regret and grief,
Gently smoothing sharp-edged hurts, enfolding with relief.
And so each pearl of pain that I can set into my crown
Becomes a pearl of praise that I will at His feet lay down.

Growth

Gabriel Hodges

photography & photoshop

Gluten Free Sourdough Bread

Judy Heathcote

baking & photography

The Heavenly Craftsman

Cindy Schmickle

The hands of the silversmith 
are competent and strong.
The process to completion
is rigorous and long.
Molding and shaping,
acid baths and fire.
Constant polishing
whether silver band or wire.
The Heavenly Craftsman,
in much the same way,
Allows the painful process
to clear the dross away.
And when my soul can shine,
like a tarnished piece restored,
His reflection will be seen
and my Savior’s name adored.

A Growing Recognition

Margie Haack

The Bishop’s sermon this morning (May 3) spoke clearly to what we need here in our family. I had to confess drifting. I needed to admit I have questioned (a little) whether Jesus cares about the serious decisions pressing on members of our family. Does he care about all the impossible complications? And if I don’t know what God is up to, can it be any good? 

You would think given my age and experience I wouldn’t need to be reminded Jesus cares about us. Not so. Even loving the story of the disciples walking to Emmaus did not prevent me from feeling downcast this week. And, yet, as I listened to the sermon there was a growing recognition that despite the way things may look to us at the moment Jesus is present with us. The moment of the disciples’ recognition did not happen until suppertime when Jesus gave them bread to eat. His purposes in our lives will not be thwarted by a virus. So, as the Bishop suggested, we ask him to stay. No matter what happens, Jesus, please stay with us.

It is of great interest to me that others have thought about this very story of the disciples at Emmaus.

400 years ago in 1620, an artist named Velazquez painted a work titled “The Servant Girl at Emmaus.” Velazquez imagined another person listening at suppertime that day. She is a teenager. A maid. She’s standing in the kitchen about to bring a pitcher of wine to the table.

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What We’ve Been Growing at Our House

Lang Family

We took this picture at the height of our garden's bloom in 2013, and the timelapse in 2015 for Toby's science fair project. Even now, as we look back at similar flowers and plants, we realize what has truly been growing at our house has been our kids

Celtic Tree of Life

Marty & Casey Ochs

leather and paint

Marty provides the designs. Casey carves and tools the leather, then Marty paints to complete the piece.