Our part: Preparing the soil for grace

First zinnia of our vacant lot garden

"While today the word humility may connote a placid servility in the face of mistreatment, its Latin origins suggest strength and fertility. The word comes from hummus, as in "earth." A humble person is one who accepts the paradox of being both "great and small" and does not discount that hope which Kierkegaard terms "possibility."We may look to physicians or therapists when our lives go off track, or we may pray the psalms, or seek solace in a favorite novel. But in a sense we are all seeking the same thing. We want to prepare a good soil in which grace can grow; we want to regard the cracks and fissures in ourselves with fresh eyes, so that they might be revealed not merely as the cause or the symptom of our misery but also as places where the light of promise shines through."

- Kathleen Norris in Acedia and Me: A Marriage, Monks, and a Writer's Life

Comments

[your rafiki]

Oh Wow. How beautiful; you must have caught it just after it opened! Can't wait to see it tomorrow... :-)