I whimsically captioned the photo (Bill, Sue Kirkland, Victoria) at left “Pentecost” because of the “tongues of fire” streaming from the Chihully exhibit behind us at the Missouri Botanical Garden (“Divided  tongues  as  of  fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them.” Acts 2:3) The exhibition of the glass wonders of Dale Chihully added miraculous color to the emergent Irises, the Peonies, and Hostas bursting out in early May.

It  made  me think  about  the  charm  of  the  Holy  Spirit  in  our  writing  together  on  our  first  “Writing  Marathon”  in  St. Louis.

The day (May the Fourth be with you) was glorious, and we wrote with our hearts, excavating from the deep, as well as reflecting the glory of the Laumeier sculptures.

We traveled from Pioneer Bakery – 210 Kirkwood Rd., Kirkwood, MO – https://thepioneer-stl.com

to the U. S. Grant National Historic Site – 7400 Grant Road, St. Louis, MO 63123 https://www.nps.gov/ulsg/index.htm

to the Laumeier Sculpture Park, 12580 Rott Road, Saint Louis, Missouri 63127 https://www.laumeiersculpturepark.org/

where we passed scrutiny of the all-seeing eyeball.

to the Frisco Barroom, 8110 Big Bend Blvd., Webster Groves, MO 63119, https://www.thefriscostl.com

Where we ate and comforted and celebrated with our writing.

We listened intently to the writing shared at every stop and observed the strict protocol of responding with “thank you.”  It was a challenge, so deep and tender the writing from some notebooks and laptops, we were blessed with intimate musings. But we gave each one a heartfelt “thank you.”

Then on Saturday Sue, Victoria and I ventured into troubled skies to the Missouri Botanical Garden and were rewarded with emergent sun and some amazing irises and azaleas just reaching their  peak blooming.  Chihully’s glass sculptures display both the swirling Medusa-style of glass blossoms and the upright streams of purple glass like the ones below, rising from the fallen logs. I decided to call the purple columns “Rapture of the Fallen Timbers.”

It all reminds of the glory of the Creator, who tends the lilies of the field, leaving us a little breathless with delight.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I am a little amazed at the Pentecostal love our “Writer’s Life” group shared over the holidays of May 4 and Cinco de Mayo, considering many of us had been dispersed and witnessed each other only on Zoom in recent months. We pondered the grief and the joy of our writing, but we also ruminated intently around our dining room table, a dozen of us wishing for a better world, but grateful for the society we shared at that moment.

I am thankful for fire in our hearts and the upward arc of our hopes, all captured by the swirling blossoms and vertical streams of Chihully in the Garden.