Rambling Roses

From The Pastor’s Desk—

June often brings in the first roses of the season. First the beach roses, then the floribunda, fill the air with their peppery sweetness. But, towards the end of the month, and certainly throughout July, a new contender for the crown emerges. In the overgrown sides of the road, twined among weeds and guardrails, the rambling roses begin to assert themselves. What was once a uniform mass of green bursts forth in vibrant colors, reminding us that what was once overlooked and ignored often possesses its own beauty, in its season.

In “The Divinity School Address”, given to Harvard’s graduating class in 1838, Ralph Waldo Emerson observed:

In this refulgent summer, it has been a luxury to draw the breath of life. The grass grows, the buds burst, the meadow is spotted with fire and gold in the tint of flowers. The air is full of birds, and sweet with the breath of the pine, the balm-of-Gilead, and the new hay. Night brings no gloom to the heart with its welcome shade. Through the transparent darkness the stars pour their almost spiritual rays. Man under them seems a young child, and his huge globe a toy. The cool night bathes the world as with a river, and prepares his eyes again for the crimson dawn. The mystery of nature was never displayed more happily.

Though we are separated from this address by almost 2 centuries, Emerson’s words ring as true as if they were composed on Great Island just this day. The world around us bursts forth with new life, with rambling roses being just one part of this abundance.

This Summer, as so much clamors for our attention, my prayer for each one of you is that -like the roadside roses- you will find beauty and new life in unexpected places. The perennial advice to stop and smell the roses persists for a reason: these seasons are fleeting, and already the rugosa and floribunda have gone by. In this season, may you be attentive to all the ways that God is present for you, in this refulgent summer.

—Pastor Jon