Sunday Reflections: BlueGreen Meditations from St. John's, Cold Spring Harbor

A mid-week postcard from the rectory: on pinching back peony buds, on a New Hampshire congregation that knows how to live in summer, and on the difference between fewer flowers and more flower.

The iris didn't know it crossed state lines. It only knew there was ground here, and light, and that was sufficient. A reflection for the Sunday after Ascension — on division, multiplication, and how good news travels.17

An oriole returns to the same pine tree. An eel climbs rock to reach the water it was born for. A tern crosses seventy thousand miles to the same spot. This week: what the creatures call fidelity, and what we can learn from keeping our own appointments.

We planted three hundred tulips last fall. The deer took most of them. The ten that survived are showing off. A reflection on guardrails, the long middle of the school year, and what abundance looks like when nobody is keeping score.

A Canada goose has claimed the path between the rectory and the church — and he is not moving. A reflection on Good Shepherd Sunday, Mary Oliver's "Wild Geese," and what it means to hold your ground when it matters.

Listen to Mary Oliver read Wild Geese here.

The spillway lost a weir board. The pond didn't mind. A lesson about kenosis, the baymen of Cold Spring Harbor, and what abundance sounds like when nothing is holding it back.

A vacation on the Pamunkey River raises an ancient question: who are your waters? And a second look at Thomas reminds us that doubt is not a failure — it's just a place.

The Ospey know. The Blackbirds know. The pond has been teaching us for weeks. Easter is here.

In this Bonus Holy Week episode, Gideon reads his letter to a 17th-century monk, Brother Lawrence. This episode is a Holy Week companion inviting you, dear listener, to practice the practice of the presence of God in this Holy Week. It's a little longer, but hopefully, worth it. To read the letter go here: A Letter to Brother Lawrence.

The spring peepers appeared at St. John's Pond this week — small exaltations rising from the water's edge, singing something they cannot name. This Palm Sunday, we listen for what they're declaring, and follow two ancient processions into Jerusalem.