Creative Joy!

Joy is the infallible sign of God’s presence.

Pierre Teihard De Chardin

The whole difference between construction and creation is exactly this: that a thing constructed can only be loved after it is constructed; but a thing created is loved before it exists.

Charles Dickens

On September 10th, as my son and I worked in his yard and gardens, we discovered a pear tree happily blooming!  Not just one blossom, but several white flowers graced its limbs. It had also blossomed in the spring, but a late cold snap had caused the fruit to freeze and drop. So, it was doing its best to set fruit…which is really just a trees way of hoping to reproduce. I admired the rare loveliness of a pear blossom in early autumn even as I knew that it was extremely unlikely that there would be sufficient time for the fruit to develop. Yet, in spite of almost impossible odds, it was trying!

It seems to me that there is a beauty in the “trying” in the face of impossible odds….an audacious bravery and irrepressible hope! I like to think that God smiles when he sees his children leave this life with an unfinished book or piece of music or art. That, even when faced with declining health and/or energy from old age or disease, the joy and persistence of creating continues.

May each of us continue to blossom even as the winter of life is on the horizon