Character is born in us, not learned by us.

I spent my usual piano practice time today instead out piddling and hoeing in the Prayer Garden beside our house. The garden was commissioned as a private chapel in 2009 following the passing of our next door neighbor and very dear friend, Jean. She loved the outside, and kept bird feeders and baths, and built a screened porch onto the back of her house to sit out in the mornings and evenings and watch life. Jean passed quickly one night in her sleep and didn’t get to see, from this side of the veil, her beautiful garden porch completed.

I kept up the bird feeders as best as I could until illness took away my ability to walk, and rehabilitation gave me many months of push-back before I could walk without fear on uneven ground. This week, hiking staff in hand, I walked out and refilled her feeders, washed out the bird baths, and set about thinking what do to next, what to do…

Jean was in the military during the Korean conflict: a surgical nurse. She was such a woman of great power that I never would have wanted to cross her in those days. And she was also such a woman of great love and compassion that I would have only asked for her to be at my side when battlefield days got rough. Unlike some regular “next door neighbor” she had such an impact on my life that I decided to keep the beauty that she loved so much to look out on, to make it more beautiful in her memory, and to bring forth the Maker’s blessings on the ground as a place of quiet worship, prayer, and meditation.

A long winter of illness came over me after her death, and the Prayer Garden grew over, got weedy, her statue of St. Francis started to list on one side from sinking into soft ground.

But winters always end, and spring is never too far behind. Even the great “100 Year Winter” of Narnia turned to springtime.

Today as I was sweeping away dead plant debris and washing out the fountains and straightening up St. Francis, I thought about that end of winter, the coming of spring, and how our healing is just like the garden: we sweep up, we wash away the mess, and we enjoy the sunshine.  I thought for once that it was time to plant new things in the ground, and not just the temporary beauty of pots. I wanted to make it more beautiful, to lift the spirits of those who see it, or stop by for a little prayer, or who come and sit a while and just BE.

Of all the songs to pop into my head (unfortunately nothing from GLEE this time!), I wandered back to something stiff and formal and churchy, unlike the breezy casual green and brown of my Chapel. It was the Ralph Vaughan Williams version of The Old Hundredth.  The original hymn tune goes back to the 16th Century and is one of those hymns that is “a Bible in a Song.” If you know this one, and understand it, then you’ve got Christian faith down pretty solid.

In my younger Baptist days, this was what we listed as a “call to worship” – when this song comes up, it’s time to draw your hearts and minds toward the Heavenly kingdom. It’s time for Good Things to happen all around you. My later Episcopalian years stiffened it up some as a processional, and added a deep bow on the last line, at the mention of the Trinity.

That bowing stuff is not just rubrics to me: it’s a means of reflecting back on those early days… pulling my heart, my mind, my soul upward to the betterment of the Kingdom. Even if on this particular day, that “betterment” can only be accomplished by my showing up, listening, and taking my place in the pews.

This version was recorded at the United States Military Academy in West Point, NY. I chose it because near the end of the piece the camera pans over a sign that shows the Academy’s mission statement which is so very simple, and yet as sharp as swords:

To provide the Nation
With Leaders of Character
Who Serve
The Common Defense

I think of my friend Jean, the hard-fought old Marine nurse and gentlest soul I ever knew. I think of my young friend who is leaving for West Point this summer to begin her adventure in what it means to become that Leader of Character. I sit in the garden watching the Cardinals in the feeders, and I’m swept up in those words, Praise Father, Praise Son, Praise Holy Ghost. And from my chair I take a long, deep bow. This here, today, right now, is what I can do to the betterment of that Heavenly kingdom.  Some of us go and protect the nation. Some of us stay back and refill the feeders and sweep away the weeds.

Keep the faith!
- Amen

Old Hundredth
Words by Thomas Ken, 1695
Hymn Tune, Old Hundredth, from the Geneva Psalter, 1551
Arrangement by Ralph Vaughan Williams

Praise God from whom all blessings flow;
Praise Him all creatures here below;
Praise Him above ye Heavenly host;
Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost.
Amen.

Tags: Call to Prayer, healing, Video