Summer Afternoon

Wednesday June 17, 2015

“Summer afternoon—summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.”― Henry James

Though I will profess my enchantment with each of the four distinct seasons of nature in my home in the Wasatch mountains, I am currently enamored with summer.  Today it is clearly summer and the Linden trees are fragrant as are the Abraham Darby roses that embrace the pillars at my front door. Heaven has given us not only a beautiful visual world but fragrance and nature's music to romance our days. 

I love this season. This growing season.  The nectar flow is on for the bees and the cucumber and tomato plants are growing so rapidly, one could nearly pass time just observing their reaching. Beets and carrots and pumpkin seeds have softened beneath the soil, their casings bursting chartreuse, tender green seed leaves emerging.

I read of faith as a little seed, an experiment in the horticulture of our souls. When "given place", a good place, safe and nourishing, in our hearts that are tilled and ready, a seed of faith can become something much more.  The idea, the belief, the desire to know "(sprouts) up. . . understanding begins to be enlightened, and your mind doth begin to expand." (see Alma 32:28,42 in the Book of Mormon). A small simple beginning with such promise, such hope of something even more. 

Oliver Wendell Holmes said "A mind once expanded by a new idea, never returns to its original dimension."

Plants from seeds, fruit from plants, and nourishment from fruit is a thread of life-sustaining miracle.  See what summer does? A plant once burst from its seed enclosure will never be a seed again!  There will be new seeds but never that one again.  It has become so much more. One little seed holds such promise, the hope of something more.

Summer afternoon, warm on my skin, vibrant in hue, sultry by day, with the promise of the cool
evening, occasionally a breeze to relieve the standing heat.  Restful, sweet, and as long as I turn on the sprinklers, and pluck the weeds, the plants continue to grow!

I concur with you Mr James.