Guarded

This beautiful vine grows along a fence and a backyard gate.  However, it is impossible to linger and admire the flowers when the dogs are released into their backyard. They are extremely defensive, and I suspect a little bored. I apologized to the homeowner for setting off the dog alarm.  She was not pleased with any of us. An interesting threshold. The flowers? They simply continued to live their beauty, knowing a gate, not as a guarded, stopping point, but rather as a place to grow.  

   

Glory be to you, O God, 

for the rising of the sun, 

for color filling the skies 

and for the whiteness of daylight. 

Glory be to you 

for creatures stirring forth from the night, 

for plant forms stretching and unfolding, 

for the stable earth and its solid rocks. 

Glory be to you 

for the beauty of your image

waking in opening eyes, 

lighting the human countenance. 

Glory be to you. Glory be to you. 

But where the glistening is lost sight of, 

and where life's colors are dulled 

and the human soul grows hard, 

I pray for grace this day, 

I pray for your softening grace.     

  

Sounds of the Eternal, J. Philip Newell