Every late afternoon before the moody magical gloaming of the evening begins the sun kisses the tree tops down the street, the light filtering down through the branches of newly green leaves. Such a pretty picture snapped right as the twilight creeps up the neighborhood landscape. Today’s gorgeous sunset made me think of the little round jars of Florida’s orange marmalade purchased in souvenir shops. Father Sky took the sun’s arm and they walked down a pale yellow horizon as Mother Nature fanned the flames of an orange wildfire. As the day’s light dimmed, Boots, the neighborhood watch dog, sat on a hill by his yard and started the goodnight bark train and all the neighborhood dogs barked goodnight, checking and confirming their guard duties.

Had an interesting encounter with a male cardinal this afternoon. I still have my gardening clutter in the yard and as I glanced over at the rake and shovel thinking I should put them on the porch, a large cardinal landed on the handle of the shovel and stared at me, cocking his head from one side to the other, watching me as I watched him. His plumage was so crimson, his jet black mask so inky dark, he was almost florescent. Course I said, “Hey, Chief.” A few seconds passed by and the cardinal flew two circles around my garden and then flew away. Guess he was giving his approval of my flowerbed and garden pots. I’ve always looked at cardinals as messengers from loved ones in heaven, bringing hope of a heavenly reunion. I believe when a cardinal appears a loved one who has departed is visiting to bring comfort. They serve as symbols of God watching over us. “A cardinal doesn’t erase grief. It softens the edges for a minute.”

A friend sent me a note about the legend of the cicadas calling their sounds the “summertime music when I was a barefoot child.” She quotes John Berger, “Do you know the legend about cicadas? They say they are the souls of poets who cannot keep quiet because, when they were alive, they never wrote the poems they wanted to.” Now I’ve decided that Chief might be a cicada instead of the plump cardinal who visits me near the porch bannister.

While I was checking on my big pots of vegetable plants and looking to see if any flowers had come up I thought, God is a master gardener and our lives are his gardens. Genesis 2:15 states, “The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.” John 15:1 states: “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener.” We all grow in different soil, all plant different seeds in our lives, but God nurtures each of us with his loving care and grace. Our gardens rely on us to sustain them, needing healthy soil, water, fertilizer, and nature’s sunshine. Our lives have to be nurtured, too, through the sun and waters of Bible study and prayers. Our prayers help choose how and what we grow in our gardens, planting positive or negative thoughts. William Wordsworth writes, “Your thoughts are the seeds. The harvest can be either flowers or weeds.”

If we allow weeds of doubt to grow in our lives, they crowd out our hopes and dreams. Our lives are rooted in our faith and trust in God’s steadfast loving care, giving us the strength to weather the droughts of doubt. In the dark stormy times, we can find sunshine in the days to come through our faith. We can have perfect moments like the beautiful blooms on the flowers, but like the blooms that drop their petals, we cannot preserve the blooms in our lives except in our God given memories.

“Those who labor in the earth are the chosen people of God.” — Thomas Jefferson