A Mock-Orange Renascence

I wrote this blog during one of Maine’s harsh winters. It focuses on The Tender Places theme for early January 2020- Perseverance and Tenacity. Enjoy!

The tiniest tips of thin brown branches still peek out from under the several feet of snow that cover a shrub in my back garden, but tomorrow’s storm will take care of that. Soon, my Mock-Orange bush will join all the others in the garden in their snowy beds, completely hidden and anonymous until the ground’s growing warmth works its magic. I picture this sturdy plant sharing its fragrant, fragile blooms once again. But that time is many months in the future, and later on tonight or tomorrow, the last hint of its presence will disappear. It is a buried treasure here in my yard, one known only to the two gardeners whose hands carefully placed it there in just that exact spot one late fall day two years ago.

As I look out my window at this last reminder of my lush perennial garden, my mind makes a sideways leap to ideas of resurrection and symbols of new life. But no, resurrection is not quite the word. This plant is not dead at all, but merely dormant. Renascence, aah yes, that is it: A renewal; a springing up anew. My dictionary confirms my revised choice. Since I’ve learned that my random thoughts aren’t always so random in the realm of the Spirit, I follow the winding, trailing stem of this idea. It ends most definitely and unexpectedly at the feet of a friend who is struggling to help herself, and her family deal with the impact of a debilitating, chronic illness in its midst. She is working; she is praying; she is persevering. There is overwhelming sadness; there is discouragement and alienation; there is confusion; there is doubt. She does not intend to give up or give in. Yet, despite my friend’s generous, loving spirit and humble openness, despite her honest and steady faith, she seems unable to make much of an impact on grief’s grip. Strength is flagging. Hope is fading. Optimism is withering. Right now, at this moment, this situation looks stark and cold, as cold as the 5° morning outside my window.

I look again at my brave little Mock-Orange plant and try to see it as if I were a casual visitor here, looking out over the snow-covered landscape for the first time. What I see… well, what I see are just a few little sticks resting on the surface of the snow. They look like a useless branch that has fallen from the maple or birch trees that hang above them. My eyes quickly dismiss them as anything of interest, and I concentrate instead on the much more picturesque snow-laden branches of the pine trees reminiscent of a New England winter in an old Currier and Ives print. I am completely unaware of the secret beauty beneath my gaze. Then, I take another look, a gardener’s look, and my trained eye sees something much more hopeful. These little branches are merely a hint of something, something so much More. I see life there, deep in the innermost parts of this common little plant. I know that unseen by me, there is something vital there I could easily miss. The faces of my friend and her family re-appear in my mind. While the Mock-Orange is certainly not a burning bush, it seems to bear an important message, and so I pause and try to decipher that peculiar Spirit-word that is offered in the form of some nondescript slivers of wood.
There are some different scenarios for the Mock-Orange plant before me. One has to do with an endless winter, lifeless and devoid of growth and hope. One reflects the warmth and light that is sure to return with the turning of the seasons. Sometimes, very rarely, the winter here is just too harsh, even for hardy Maine shrubs. I hope my little Mock-Orange does not succumb, but chooses to respond to an inner urging. I hope my friend can hang on as well, for I know that there is goodness and mercy, and love, and the possibility of rejuvenation buried there in the midst of her shattered family. My prayers reside in the awakening, the renewal, the renascence that will begin somehow. I take care, lest I slip into hollow platitudes or shallow, pat answers. There are neither easy answers nor sudden relief. There is only a dogged determination to endure and find strength in unexpected places. But even in this cold place, perhaps something healing and hopeful can grow. I hope my friend can join her heart to mine in this same supplication.

I humbly recognize that this type of inner change is beyond my control. Gardeners know perhaps better than most that we can only provide part of the environment that this little shrub needs to grow. We cannot turn the seasons, or cause the sun’s pathway to shift closer to the earth. We cannot warm the earth with our sighs, or water it with our tears. This reliable shrub has within it the response to some inner call to participate in a miracle no scientist can explain. The perfectly amazing thing is that most of the time, plants shake off the snow and stretch out their branches and turn towards light. When they do, they see that the world awakens with them; they begin to feel the warmth nurtures them. It is then that they push out their blossoms as a tender offering to mark the new life that is coursing within. This, then is the promise that my friend and I join hands and firmly cling to today. Something dormant will spring up anew. If the something More that is GOD’s presence lives there in an ordinary little Mock-Orange, it surely lives in all of us as well.

I don my snow pants and tall boots and wade out with my camera to capture these last few traces, these brittle-looking branches that will someday be laden with ruffled, creamy flowers. In Mock-Oranges, I recall, flowers always appear right at the very end of the branches. I am once more in the Spirit’s thrall, as I contemplate this tiny botanical and divine synchronicity. For it is the very part of the plant that looks so forlorn, the last to be covered by winter’s blanket, that will be the self-same part that bursts into bloom just three months from now. Unlike its more showy spring companions, the jump-the-gun forsythia, or the gaudy azaleas, the mock-orange relies on a close and careful examination to appreciate its beauty, but, oh, the beauty that is there. Leaning over in the snow, I imagine that I catch a whiff of a subtle orange smell so exquisitely sweet that I take beauty into my body through the breaths I greedily gulp. In the corner of my eye, I can almost make out the shadow of a single petal. Renascence, renewal– These are just beyond this plant’s reach right now. But soon, soon, the delicate petals will unfurl, the first hint of that delectable fragrance will appear. It is the sweet fragrance of healing and hope, a reminder of the Spirit’s faithful presence in all things here on earth and heaven.