Husband and father. Former member of a religious order. The stories of our lives have already been written. We just need to decide whether or not we want to publish them.
Husband and father. Former member of a religious order. The stories of our lives have already been written. We just need to decide whether or not we want to publish them.
Even the smallest trees in the garden tower over her, and yet she presumes to be their master. They were there before she was. She does not have the right to pluck the fruit from their branches. That’s not how power works. I know that full well. I was thrown from the sky for reaching beyond my status. Why should she not be punished as I was? Perhaps it is because she couldn’t handle being punished. She is not worthy even of that. My punishment is what gave me my glory. Being exiled was the greatest gift I ever could have received. I may not be welcome in heaven anymore, but that makes everywhere else in the universe my kingdom. She cannot claim such prestige. She is nothing more than the bone of her husband, and he himself is just a handful of clay.
They know nothing of true beauty. They’ve never lived beyond this earthly mock-up. At least I still reflect glimmers of paradise in my eyes. I originated from the light, and it can never completely depart from me. They may walk with God, but I raced against Him. It is easy to be a follower. I was a challenger. I was the only one with the courage to call God’s bluff. If I hadn’t taken a stand against Him, He may never have showed us what He was capable of. Even He needs someone to hold Him accountable. He could never keep His promises if no one forced Him to make them in the first place. I’m God’s muse. And He knows it, too. That’s why He made these humans. He’s practically baiting me with them. It’s as if He can’t create anything without having me put it through the necessary testing. Well, then, who am I not to comply? They thought taking a third of the angels from heaven was my best work. Imagine how far I can make them fall when they don’t even have wings.
Red had always been Madeline Hill’s favorite color, as evidenced by the swarms of deep red roses that famously lined the fence and walkway in front of her lakeside cottage.
She was one of just a scarce remnant of year-round residents in Claymore, Maine. Most of the occupants of the surrounding homes were vacationers who came and went for just weeks at a time in the summer, but even they seemed to be keenly informed of her treasured rose garden. Hardly a day passed between May and September without some nature photographer or social influencer encroaching on her property to gather some snapshots of the rich scarlet color. As an elderly widow, Madeline welcomed these visitors. She was often out in her yard tending to her roses anyway, and always made a point to answer the many questions of the curious tourists who stopped by.
Today was a particularly active day for visitors, and so she had put out a pitcher of iced tea and relaxed on an Adirondack chair as they probed her for information.
“Where did you learn to grow flowers like this?” Asked a middle-aged hiker who was leaning heavily on her fence while his younger wife stood impatiently behind him. “This looks like something that a team of landscape artists would have trouble maintaining, and here you are all on your own. Are you Mother Nature herself?”
Madeline chuckled as she took a sip of iced tea.
“No,” she said. “Not Mother Nature. But I learned everything I know from Mother Scholastica. She was my superior up at Stonemount, many years ago.”
“Stonemount Abbey?” Asked the hiker. “I know that place. We used to go camping up that way. Remember, Honey?”
He glanced back at his wife, who made hardly any attempt to respond. Shrugging, he turned back to Madeline.
“But if you were at Stonemount, that must mean you were a nun, right?”
Madeline nodded.
“In a past life, I was.”
Her interviewer almost fell over the fence in fascination.
“Well, sounds like there’s quite a story there! Care to elaborate?”
It had been a long time since anyone had asked her about her convent days. Sometimes she briefly forgot that she had been a nun herself. But whenever she remembered, she became enraptured in potent memory.
In the Spring of 1964, Madeline was only a few months into her novitiate when she was assigned the role of gardener’s assistant. She was under the direct supervision of the Mother Prioress, the second-highest authority in the Abbey, under only the Abbess herself. Madeline, only a couple of years removed from high school, could do little to contain her nerves as she approached the esteemed gardener on the first day of the assignment.
The prioress looked neutrally at her new recruit. “You’re late,” she said.
Madeline thought better than to defend herself, so she just nodded submissively.
“I know what you’re thinking,” said the prioress. “Morning chores begin at Nine, immediately after breakfast. But you must remember, as gardeners, we are following the earth’s schedule, not our own. And if we were to begin watering the roses at nine, the sun would already be too high in the sky, and its heat would cause the water to scald and wither them. Therefore, as gardener’s assistant, it is understood that you are to be dismissed from breakfast early so you can begin your work at a more effective time. I did not tell you this until now, because I wanted you to fully understand the reason for it. We must be mindful of everything we do, young novice. Mindfulness is what distinguishes us from fanatics.”
Madeline considered everything that had just been told to her. It was frankly very intriguing to her. She had never known that there were so many special facts about roses and other flowers.
As the months went on, she learned many more little-known insights from the Mother Prioress. The work was hard, and much was expected of her, but she thought little of it if it meant she was able to discover all she could about the enchanting art of gardening.
Madeline told this story so intentfully that she hadn’t even noticed that her audience had grown. It was now a young mother who was questioning her. She was wrestling three young children to keep them from climbing the fence and trampling the roses, but she was still acutely focused on Madeline as she asked her questions.
“No wonder your garden is so breathtaking!” She said. “But I can’t help but wonder, why did the sisters spend so much time planting flowers? Don’t get me wrong, I think they’re wonderful, but shouldn’t you have been spending that time serving the poor instead? I mean, that’s the point of religion, isn’t it?”
Madeline smiled warmly. “The roses were for our own personal reflection,” she said. “The red petals reminded us of the blood of Christ, which was shed for the salvation of the world. Now, I don’t think anyone could ever serve the poor better than that, do you?”
The woman smiled back appreciatively. “No, I guess not,” she said. “Gosh, it sounds like it was such a lovely life. What made you decide to leave it?”
Madeline was expecting that question to come, but had half-hoped it wouldn’t. Nevertheless, she had already told so much of her story. It was only fair to finish it. She took a crisp, cleansing breath, and continued.
When Mother Prioress passed away in 1970, it was anticipated that Madeline would inherit her role as head gardener. But by that time, vocations were on such a decline at the abbey that she had no asisstants to teach herself. And so, much to her dismay, she was instead entrusted with the newly-established role of recruiter. It was now her duty to make a tour of schools and parishes across the state in an attempt to inspire young women with the prospect of living a life given fully to the Lord in prayer and communal charity. The problem was, she had become such an introvert working quietly in the garden for almost seven years that she could never muster the stage presence to win over even a single sisterly soul.
She was walking back to the train station from a state university campus after yet another unsuccessful afternoon of recruiting, when she was approached by a tall and inquisitive-looking young man.
“I’m sorry, but we only take women,” she said half-jokingly as he scrambled ever-closer to her.
“Yeah,” he said. “But we take everyone where I come from.”
“And where is that?” Madeline asked.
“It’s an organic farm a few towns over from here,” He said. “We’re all about creating a sustainable future for our bodies, souls, and for the environment. And we need an extra gardener. I heard you talk about your experience at the abbey on campus earlier. What we do is a lot like that, actually. Except there really aren’t any rules. I think you might be a good fit there.”
Madeline remained cautious, but couldn’t help being slightly curious as well.
“If there are no rules,” she said, “then it is nothing like an abbey.”
“Well, maybe,” the stranger said. “And maybe that’s not quite as bad a thing as you think.”
He scribbled down an address on a gum wrapper he pulled from his pocket and handed it to her.
Madeline didn’t leave the abbey right away. She continued recruiting for several more months, and eventually even had some success. Thanks to her efforts, three new postulants entered the following September. She saw that as her final service to her fellow sisters: finding someone to replace her.
Yet another voice from the small throng at Madeline’s fence spoke up. This time, it was a snowbird who had just recently returned from a winter at Myrtle Beach.
“I heard about that organic farm,” he said. “It ended up being a safe-haven for communists. They found Chinese spies hiding out there and shut the place down, didn’t they?”
Madeline finally stood up out of her chair.
“Yes,” she said. “Unfortunately, that was some information that I was not made immediately aware of.”
She picked up her gardening tools and started getting back to work.
“So, what did you do?” the man asked. “Did you try to go back to the convent?”
“Or did you try to find another farm to work at?” Suggested someone eise.
“Did you get married and have kids?”
“Are you still religious?”
“You could’ve become a florist.”
“You should write a book about your experience.”
The more they peppered her with speculations, the less she listened. She was too entranced by her beloved roses to bother paying attention to them. Red was her favorite color, after all, and these roses were such a fine and radiant red, like none other she had ever seen. They reminded her somewhat of the precious blood. They haunted her slightly with the memory of the communist flag. They even seemed to resemble the flushed crimson in the faces of those who always asked her questions.
But most of all, they were simply the burst of natural glow that mirrored the strong pink of the sunrise every morning. They were the cheerful banner of blossoming growth that was intensified by dewdrops and rainfall. They were the pleasant company that remained loyally by her side every day, bobbing and curtsying in the light summer breeze. They were Madeline’s roses, and that’s all she needed them to be.
Your greatest beauty is your only flaw; An intentional imperfection Inflicted upon you by your very maker. It was the penalty for remaining silent, Or perhaps a failed cure for muteness, But you were never meant to speak. You are merely a figurehead; A lifeless incarnation of an earthly mortal, And not even he was the true lawgiver. The slated tablets which he carried Have simply been inscribed in stone yet again.
Lord, I could ask you to forgive me for my pride, But I can’t be so bold as to ask you that. I could ask you to forgive me for my dishonesty, But I wouldn’t be asking sincerely. I could ask you to forgive me for my greed, But that might be asking too much. I could ask you to forgive you for my vanity, But I would just be doing that to look good. I could ask you to forgive me for my lack of mercy, But I can’t even forgive myself for that. I could ask you to forgive you for my laziness, but I just don’t have the energy to do that. I could ask you to forgive me for my doubt, But I’m not sure that you would listen to me. I could ask you to forgive me for being disobedient, But I don’t want to do that. I could ask you to forgive me for my worldly desires, But I’m too distracted by other things right now. I think the only thing I’m going to ask you to forgive me for is being too hard on myself, Because I may have my faults, But I am also a good person, Just as you made me to be. So rather than seeking forgiveness, I’m going to seek wisdom; Wisdom to know that you love me no matter what, And that you have given me the grace to do better day by day. Amen.
“Light” is not the proper word To describe the sun in early spring. “Light” implies an awakening; an epiphany, But this is more like a sedative; A morphine to unburden us Of the sting of winter. Within the swaddling stupor Of its whispering rays, We abandon ourselves to the delusion Of hallucinogenic daydreams.
Although, perhaps this feeling is “light” after all: The aura of enraptured discovery, Brought forth by the divination of this siesta’s stirring trance, Because the deeper into slumber that I sink, The higher I ascend into the summits of the galaxy, Magnetized by the reverberations of the solar spirits.
The promise of celestial transcendence beckons me. I cannot resist its splendor, And as I draw closer to its presence, I realize that I am becoming a part of it, My whole being inflamed by it’s eternal yet spontaneous translucence. Yes, I am “light” itself, and everything I was that was not light evaporates. I am Baptized by the fire of redemptory cremation, until there is nothing left of me at all. Only then am I deemed worthy to be incarnated once more, Reborn a second time into the consciousness of terrestrial existence.
But as I awaken back into the lesser reality of this dimension, An indelible mark is emblazoned on my flesh As remembrance of my metamorphoses; That pilgrimage across the universe Of my unmoving sleep. A shroud upon my skin; A coloration falling somewhere between tan and sunburn. Now the truth is revealed to me: This is not “light” at all. This is dark.
A strangely satisfying mixture of foreboding and enchanting, A love letter of threats and songs and signs and madmen’s ranting; Its truth makes up the very fabric of my being and yet it’s mystery escapes my comprehension, Instantaneous and everlasting as the essence of reality itself that breaks free of all convention, Too sacred to be touched but still its intimacy dwells deep inside us all, Still and silent but invigorating is its universal call. All of time and space compressed within the utterance of a single word; I dare not speak it, but within it is all language and significance inferred. The personhood of love and grace conceals it’s wholeness within its symbol and transliteration: The priceless and gratuitous enfleshment of the prophecy and the ageless promise of the Revelation.
Holes are very perplexing. Strictly speaking, they don’t exist. The term “hole” refers not to something physical, but to the absence of something. You cannot create a hole in the ground. You can only remove ground. It is the void that is left that we call a hole.
This is especially true in the case of a hole that is dug for a grave. This kind of hole doesn’t even have the dignity of being dug for a positive purpose. A hole that is dug for a tunnel, or a hole that unearths something of value, is at least given a role to play in producing something worthwhile. The hole of a grave is nothing more than an emptiness containing even more emptiness.
Perhaps that is why cemeteries scare us so much. It is not, in fact, because there is a presence there, but because there is nothing there. A cemetery is a rift, a rupture in the fabric of time and space that slowly and sinisterly engulfs the universe around it into a vacuum. The black hole at the center of the galaxy is not nearly as strong. It is only a single hole, after all, but there are hundreds of graves in a cemetery, and each one greedily and thirstily extracts the existence of an entire human life from the continuum of history. All the influences and decisions, every infinitude of rational thought and emotion, the torrential and voluminous power of love itself, is swallowed whole by a 6-foot depression in the soil.
Yet even this is not the deepest hole. There is a hole of a completely different kind, one that does not so much swallow as channel, like a canyon, or a crater being imprinted into the earth by the release of volcano. This is not a hole of emptiness, but rather openness. It is a hole that does not swallow or usurp anything. It is a wound that is inflicted through selflessness and sacrifice. It is a mouth opened to sing praises. It is an empty tomb.
This hole is still an absence, but it is not a void. It is the removal of pain, the uprooting of doubt and fear. It is a treasure that is unearthed. It is a passageway to life everlasting. Light cannot escape a black hole, and this kind of hole does not eliminate the other kind, but it enters it and overturns it from within. Cemeteries will never stop scaring us, and the whirlpool of the grave will never cease to swallow up the very fabric of time and space, but our hope lies beyond time and space. Look beyond the hedges of the graveyard. There you will see the church. The granite obelisks of headstones loom high and cast sour shadows, but the steeple reaches even higher, and the golden cross atop it bears the rays of the sun.
“Where O death, is thy victory? Where, O death, is thy sting?” -Corinthians 15:55