We've been working on wedding flowers for DD#4. Planning flowers and music are two of the loveliest parts of imagining a wedding, and this one is no exception. Whatever else they are, weddings are fundamentally an opportunity to express our deepest longings for beauty and stability, for warmth and love. While our expressions of those things may differ, I am convinced those longings are the same for every family that plans a wedding.
While I can't go into much detail yet about what kinds of flowers and music DD#4 will have at her wedding, thinking about her flower choices made me think about flowers I love. This afternoon I was thinking about roses nestled into evergreen sprays. I've used rose and evergreen arrangements often during holiday seasons, but I also like rose and boxwood in the summer. There's something about dressing the roses in a collar of greenery that enhances the color, texture, and fragrance of both elements.
We had blue asters at our wedding, and I still remember their delicate color with joy. My sister and I mixed up our bouquets -- she tried to tell me I was carrying her maid-of-honor bouquet -- but I loved the colors in it, and insisted it was mine. She was right, though, and ended up carrying the bridal bouquet. Fortunately I still got the groom despite the bouquet mix-up.
What are your favorite flowers? and how do you arrange them?
Showing posts with label beauty. Show all posts
Showing posts with label beauty. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Monday, February 23, 2009
Conversations in Stone
I was listening to a feature about the composer Thomas Tallis on an older Mars Hill CD this morning. During an interview with Paul Walker, host Ken Myers made a comment about Tallis's music that made me stop and think about something only indirectly related: the two men were talking about Tallis's fondness for writing music that made the most of his instruments and singers in the sense of writing for the highest sopranos, the deepest basses, and so on.
One of the men -- I don't quite remember now which of them -- noted that such music was necessary to fill up the great churches and cathedrals of the time, then observed we wouldn't need such music now, as often, all we have to fill up is a Morton building.
We -- the Church -- have become quite used to modest church buildings. We've had to close up some of our most beautiful churches because the areas around them have changed and there aren't enough parishioners anymore to care for and support them. We don't build great cathedrals because they are too expensive. We don't need such extravagance, we tell ourselves; we could find God on the golf course if necessary.
And that's true. God, being omnipotent and omnipresent, can certainly be found on the golf course, but that's not really the point.
The great cathedrals and many less-impressive-but-nevertheless-beautiful churches were built with a commitment to excellence and loveliness out of a deep desire to honor God, to reflect in an architectural way the abiding truths of Scripture and the Gospel about who God is, and how He is, and what He is.
I'm blessed right now to attend church in a church building that is traditionally beautiful, in familiar ways -- stained glass windows, a carved altarpiece, glowing woods and soaring ceilings, with a bell tower that, while difficult to maintain, stands out over the countryside like a sentinel. On Sunday mornings the bell is rung to call us to worship, a hush falls over the sanctuary, and my heart rests in the peace of it.
There are many other ways to incorporate beauty and majesty into a church building, some of them traditional, some quite simple and lovely, some more modern. My argument isn't with them.
The churches I worry over are the ones that sacrifice that translation of who and how and what God is -- that conversation in stone -- into the place where they meet. They miss an important opportunity to speak in brick and mortar, or wood, or stone; they substitute sensible thrift for extravagant sacrifice, and are all the poorer for it.
One of the men -- I don't quite remember now which of them -- noted that such music was necessary to fill up the great churches and cathedrals of the time, then observed we wouldn't need such music now, as often, all we have to fill up is a Morton building.
We -- the Church -- have become quite used to modest church buildings. We've had to close up some of our most beautiful churches because the areas around them have changed and there aren't enough parishioners anymore to care for and support them. We don't build great cathedrals because they are too expensive. We don't need such extravagance, we tell ourselves; we could find God on the golf course if necessary.
And that's true. God, being omnipotent and omnipresent, can certainly be found on the golf course, but that's not really the point.
The great cathedrals and many less-impressive-but-nevertheless-beautiful churches were built with a commitment to excellence and loveliness out of a deep desire to honor God, to reflect in an architectural way the abiding truths of Scripture and the Gospel about who God is, and how He is, and what He is.
I'm blessed right now to attend church in a church building that is traditionally beautiful, in familiar ways -- stained glass windows, a carved altarpiece, glowing woods and soaring ceilings, with a bell tower that, while difficult to maintain, stands out over the countryside like a sentinel. On Sunday mornings the bell is rung to call us to worship, a hush falls over the sanctuary, and my heart rests in the peace of it.
There are many other ways to incorporate beauty and majesty into a church building, some of them traditional, some quite simple and lovely, some more modern. My argument isn't with them.
The churches I worry over are the ones that sacrifice that translation of who and how and what God is -- that conversation in stone -- into the place where they meet. They miss an important opportunity to speak in brick and mortar, or wood, or stone; they substitute sensible thrift for extravagant sacrifice, and are all the poorer for it.
Friday, May 25, 2007
Graduation Notes
Emma graduated from 8th grade this evening.
Many schools no longer mark this milestone. An 8th grade diploma used to be significant; it used to be the end game for a lot of students.
Now it's just one more stop on the educational road.
When Emma was 6 or 7 years old, we were out walking one evening after dinner. I was there to help with a new baby in the house, and we were ready to stretch our legs.
We walked across the road, choosing a paved trail that led us past a lagoon where trees hung over the trail on one side and into the lagoon on the other. Before we got to the lagoon, though, we could see something seemed amiss: the trees appeared to be hung with something white, as though older kids had tee-peed them.
As we got closer we realized the something white was white cranes, perched on every limb and branch they could find. There was a hush over the lagoon; only our footsteps sounded in the early evening air.
Suddenly the cranes – all of them – took flight. They lifted into the air like a cloud, momentarily blocking out the sky. The trees turned green again, and the cranes were gone.
Emma and I looked at one another, speechless for a moment. Then she said, “Grandma, I won't ever forget this.”
It would have been easy to chalk up the cranes as one more learning experience, to launch into a lecture about their feeding habits or instruct Emma in the fine art of careful observation. I didn't have the heart for it, though.
Moments like that, moments of wonder and beauty - well, they are what they are. Whether it's a graduation or a wealth of cranes, all you can do is hold your breath at the wonder of it.
Many schools no longer mark this milestone. An 8th grade diploma used to be significant; it used to be the end game for a lot of students.
Now it's just one more stop on the educational road.
When Emma was 6 or 7 years old, we were out walking one evening after dinner. I was there to help with a new baby in the house, and we were ready to stretch our legs.
We walked across the road, choosing a paved trail that led us past a lagoon where trees hung over the trail on one side and into the lagoon on the other. Before we got to the lagoon, though, we could see something seemed amiss: the trees appeared to be hung with something white, as though older kids had tee-peed them.
As we got closer we realized the something white was white cranes, perched on every limb and branch they could find. There was a hush over the lagoon; only our footsteps sounded in the early evening air.
Suddenly the cranes – all of them – took flight. They lifted into the air like a cloud, momentarily blocking out the sky. The trees turned green again, and the cranes were gone.
Emma and I looked at one another, speechless for a moment. Then she said, “Grandma, I won't ever forget this.”
It would have been easy to chalk up the cranes as one more learning experience, to launch into a lecture about their feeding habits or instruct Emma in the fine art of careful observation. I didn't have the heart for it, though.
Moments like that, moments of wonder and beauty - well, they are what they are. Whether it's a graduation or a wealth of cranes, all you can do is hold your breath at the wonder of it.
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