In desperation for colour in my beige cave, I went out to buy a plant today. I aimed for flowers but was waylaid by a miniature jasmine that smelled so lovely. Green is a colour, after all.
This afternoon, I went upstairs to talk to the people upstairs and got chatting with their guests who just happened to be an international expert on Thomas Merton and a PhD student studying theological aesthetics. Ended up having a very satisfying and thought-provoking thirty minute conversation that perked me up no end from my post-church, too-much-floaty-theology-reading funk. I could have stayed all day. Sadly they all had a wedding to go to, so I'll have my cheese on toast instead. Smiling.
This poem was one of the threads that was picked up (with apologies to Ms Browning for changing the final pronouns).
No lily-muffled hum of a summer-bee,
But finds some coupling with the spinning stars;
No pebble at your foot, but proves a sphere;
No chaffinch, but implies the cherubim;
And (glancing on my own thin, veinèd wrist),
In such a little tremor of the blood
The whole strong clamour of a vehement soul
Doth utter itself distinct. Earth's crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God;
But only she who sees, takes off her shoes.
~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning
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