by Vera Grant AMMM              Ireland               25.05.2023

I planted it last year and looked forward to this very different version of the familiar, yellow Broom. This one has flowers of red, orange andyellow and I thought it would be a warm and cheerful welcome as you walked through the gate.

For the first couple of weeks, it flourished and spread its fronds but as the ground warmed the dormant array of Spring /Summer plants pushed up and every time I passed I thought, that Broom is being choked. As I hesitated the bright welcoming fronds lost their vitality and I was reminded of Kahil Gibran’s words
‘The Oak tree and the Cypress grow not in each other’s shadow’.

Something had to be done to allow the Broom to grow but what had to be sacrificed to create the space? It reminded me of myself, packing everything in, planning ahead, filling up the hours and never having time to call my own.

By chance this week Richard Rohr had posted an article on the ‘Art of Detachment’. There he writes
‘If we are filled with ourselves, there is no room for another and certainly not for God.’

Even taking the time to read the short article gave me a sense of hearing the word of God. It is time to stop all the frenetic rushing around, time to stop and reflect, to ease the mind and allow the body to rest.

It was like my mother telling me, ‘You are burning the candle at both ends’.

Decisions have been made, the secateurs have done their work to clear some of the intruders and the Broom is once again thriving in its own space.

I am practising saying no and whilst not easy I realise that there is more to living than just filling it with ourselves.   God beckons!