The Bluebell Fairy and Friends
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My hundred thousand bells of blue,
The splendour of the Spring,
They carpet all the woods anew
With royalty of sapphire hue;
The Primrose is the Queen, 'tis true.
But surely I am King!
Ah yes,
The peerless Woodland King!
Loud, loud the thrushes sing their song;
The bluebell woods are wide;
My stems are tall and straight and strong;
From ugly streets the children throng,
They gather armfuls, great and long,
Then home they troop in pride-
Ah yes,
With laughter and with pride!
Flower Fairies
It was such a wonderful day; the air was full of golden light and the sky of such a blueness as never had been seen before. Out of the palace gates he rode and he wore his crown, and his eyes were more brilliant than the jewels in it, and his smile was more radiant than a sunrise as he looked about him, for every breath he drew in was fragrant, every ugly place was hidden and every squalid corner filled with beauty, for it seemed as if the whole world were waving with Blue Flowers. The Land of the Blue Flower
For a week every year, our whole world waves with blue flowers. We go, day after day, down to the banks of a well-loved creek and plop down in the midst of an endless carpet of blue. The first day there, the children delight in re-discovering familiar landmarks. There is the tree that Trip and Christian hauled out into the middle of the creek years ago. It's still there, still bringing back memories of lots of time in the woods with faraway friends. There is the fallen trunk where we line up all the children for a picture every year. It's crumbled quite a bit in the past year. I don't think it will hold them all next year. We spread the blanket and break open the lunch basket. Even the food is always the same: cheese, crackers, grapes, and lots of pistachios. We sketch blue flowers and little white "Fairy Spuds." Someone always "accidentally" falls in the creek. We fill our winter-weary souls with the crisp blue breath of springtime. And it's never enough. We never want to leave and we always want to return.
Last year, after the bluebells had bloomed and faded, my friend Louise sent me an extraordinary book. The Land of the Blue Flower was written by Frances Hodgson Burnett, beloved author of A Secret Garden. I read the book myself and then forced myself to wait to share it with my children until the bluebells bloomed this year. It is a classic fairy tale of love and hope and how we are nurtured by nature. In the Land of the Blue Flower, singular things came to pass.
Those who had wasted their days loitering or rioting were obliged to get up in the morning to work in their gardens, and finding that exercise and fresh air improved their health and spirits, they began to like it. Court ladies found it good for their complexions and tempers; busy merchants discovered that it made their heads clearer; ambitious students found that after an hour spent evening and morning over their Blue Flower beds they could study twice as long without fatigue. The children of the princes and nobles became so full of work and talk of the soil and their seeds that they quite forgot to squabble and be jealous of each other's importance at Court.The Land of the Blue Flower
And so it is every year at the bluebells. This year, we wandered down there a very winter-weary crew. Some of us still coughing, Karoline a full five pounds lighter than she'd been before the flu, tired to the bone of being cooped up inside and sick. And over the course of the week, we all bloomed. The sunshine and the sheer beauty of our surroundings worked a magic that medicine can't.
I was talking to my friend Linda around the middle of the week. I told her how I had it in me to pack everyone and everything up, hike the short hike into the woods and plop down on a tarp for the next few hours. Then, I had enough energy to walk back to the van and get us home. This was all followed by a nap. But while we were there, I smelled the fresh air and watched my children play. There was no agenda, just a creek to wade in, trees to climb, a natural world to get to know a little better. She told me she'd tried to persuade a couple of friends to come with her but they begged off, saying they were too tired and too stressed to take a day off. And Linda and I knew that that is precisely when one needs a day in the Land of the Blue Flower.
This week has been a beautiful medley of blue flowers and the sights and sounds of the papal visit. God is very near indeed. I see Him in my land of blue flowers. I hear Him in the voice of the Holy Father.
Burnett writes, "The earth is full of magic...Most men know nothing of it and so comes misery. The first law of the earth's magic is this one. If you fill your mind with a beautiful thought there will be no room in it for an ugly one. This I learned from you and from my brothers the stars. So I gave my people the Blue Flower to think of and work for. It lead them to see beauty and to work happily and filled the land with bloom. I their King, am their brother, and soon they will understand this and I can help them, and all will be well. They shall be wise and joyous and know good fortune.The Land of the Blue Flower
Everyone should have a Land of the Blue Flower, a place where Fairy Spuds welcome her and waving blue flowers remind her that hope and love are eternal and always within reach. Squinting across the creek at the endless fields of blue, I whispered a little prayer for the people who shun fairies. I do hope that they don't shun flowers, too.
What She Said
/Danielle Bean on a Benedictine Springtime.
Never Too Many Flowers or Children
/How can there be too many children? That is like saying there are too many flowers. Mother Teresa
It was another glorious day today! Here's a whole new bunch of pictures, courtesy of Mary Beth. One of the funniest things I've ever seen was Nicholas running across the creek to the "island," carrying Paddy's shoes high in the air. Paddy is notorious for wanting nothing to do with mud or water. He's great at suggesting all sorts of dirty, wet things for Nicky to do and then standing back and having his curiosity sated while he watches Nicky get dirty. Nicky left Paddy barefoot on the banks and took his shoes across the creek. Then, all the other kids stood on the island and taunted "Come get them!" until Paddy was forced to wade into the water.Karoline was much happier today, too, though she still remains firmly opposed to getting wet or dirty, either.
The Power of Prayer
/We didn't go to see the Pope yesterday. It's a long story and I'll tell you later. I'm sad about it, but I'm choosing to focus on who did go to see the Pope yesterday and just how extraordinary his day was.
Let's begin about two months ago. Our family has been pondering some big decisions and we've added some new prayer intentions in the past few weeks as well. When first these things popped up, I asked Mike to make some time to go to adoration. I was fine with whatever decisions we made and whatever events unfolded, I just wanted to know he had spent some quality time mulling it over with Jesus. But Mike's been traveling and busy and even on the day he'd set aside in early March to sit in the Blessed Sacrament chapel at the Shrine, he was interrupted. The production team wanted to go over every detail of the Pope's time there in light of Secret Service requirements. Mike was there for hours, but he never got any time alone with God. And I admit to being very frustrated. That was well before Holy Week. And I began an incessant prayer campaign. I wasn't necessarily pleading for any outcome; I just wanted him in front of our Lord for a chunk of time. I switched my wedding ring to my right hand and every time I noticed it, I prayed he'd have adoration time. Weeks later, I wasn't even noticing the ring was on the wrong hand any more, so I took it off altogether so I'd remember to pray. And then that became "normal." So I put the ring back on. Dozens of times every day, I asked God to call my husband to Him.
Mike left the house early yesterday to drive down to his office to meet Jimmy, Christian's godfather. Together, they needed to drop by the Secret Service headquarters to have Jimmy's picture re-taken for his press credential. From there, they would continue on to a DC hotel where the press corps for the Shrine visit was sequestered before being escorted to the Shrine by the Secret Service. Usually, Mike is the director for EWTN events at the Shrine. He sits in the truck outside the building and calls the shots. On this glorious day, though, he was going to run camera. That way, he'd be in the same room with the Holy Father. But which room?
The Secret Service wanted everyone in his place three hours before the Pope arrived. Mike's "place" was the Blessed Sacrament Chapel. For three hours, he sat alone with his camera and Jesus and awaited the Holy Father. Then, from behind that camera, he prayed with the Pope in front of Our Lord! The Pope went on downstairs to the Crypt Church for Vespers and to address the Bishops' Conference. The Secret Service told Mike to stay right where he was. Until the Pope left the building. For six hours, on the Pope's birthday, in the company of the Pope for some of the time, my husband sat in the Adoration Chapel of our favorite church.
God answers praying wives with great generosity, doesn't He?
