If someone handed me colors and a brush and asked me to paint a picture of this day, I would paint the pomegranate that spilled its riches across a platter at lunch this afternoon.
We’re not accustomed to having pomegranate around here, but it was on sale at a local market and one was purchased and sliced and arranged on a platter for lunch. Nearly everyone paused as they passed, with some partaking and some not, but all admiring the festively-colored seeds spread across the plate like a meadow in bloom.
The day has been like that, a ripe fruit broken open by the sun and sowing its seeds across the hours – seeds of prayer, work, leisure, Sacred Scripture, laughter with an employee, prayerful concern for someone undergoing surgery, thanksgiving for the gift of music on this memorial of St. Cecilia… Beautiful seeds all, some muted, some richly colored, all opening like blossoms across the hours of the day.
And now, nighttime. Supper dishes have been put away. Our easy laughter and conversation over dinner have ceased. The Psalms of Compline have been recited. It’s time to slip into the ripening darkness of night, until we break into the hours of a new day.
