Sunday 20 July 2014

A Time of Contrasts

The news lately has been abundantly dark, full of the terrible things we humans do to one another and I admit I have been finding it hard to deal with at times.  I pray and try not to brood or become utterly overwhelmed and it feels so little.

Meanwhile in the garden the summer continues oblivious, as it as always done, the borders a tangle of blooms and lush green.  It is, as the wonderful writer Ronald Blythe has noted, a growing year: young trees have shot up a foot or more, the roses reach for the sky, the sole remaining raspberry cane performs hitherto unheard of feats and the ceanothus and holly attempt to meet from their separate sides of the lawn.

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To sit in the garden and appreciate its beauty as it hums and twitters and flutters with wildlife seems indulgent, inappropriate somehow, like I should not be enjoying that moment when others were suffering so much.  But what does it profit anybody if I did not enjoy that moment, since there is nothing I can do as I am to change matters, once I have prayed and prayed again?

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Also thank you for your comments to my last post, try as I might, I cannot get blogger to let me reply, but I do very much appreciate what you have said.

5 comments:

  1. I know just what you mean about trying to come to terms with horror when our own life, and Nature, seem so unfairly beautiful and even indifferent. (I wrote a post about this at the time of the Japanese tsunami: http://christinelaennec.co.uk/2011/03/13/japan-trying-to-counter-despair-with-hope/) I know if I were someone caught up in a disaster, I would want you, more than ever before, to enjoy the intense beauty that life has to offer. Human existence is so fragile, but the deepest things, love, faith, hope, are indestructible. I think our gardens are there to remind us of this.
    Thanks also for the link to Ronald Blythe's blog. For several years I used a dictionary entry about his writing in a workshop I designed on paraphrasing. I've always intended to read his novels, but have never done so - his blog is so interesting! Perhaps I'll start with that.

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    1. Thank you, that's very wise. I love Ronald Blythe's writing, I found the blog when trying to find out more about him after reading his book "Akenfield", which is social history I suppose, amazing book.

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  2. Such pretty flowers ... the rose is beautiful :)

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    1. Thank you, it's very tenacious, it grows in stony soil (100 years ago there was a stone quarry 1/4 of a mile away and we're on the same soil!) between the pond and the fence and yet grows and grows, it's put up shoots taller than me this year. It flowered in the middle of winter after it was put in. A surprisingly inspiring plant.

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  3. Hurrah! Blogger is letting me comment!

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