During Citrus Blossom time in Florida it is not possible to stand outside and breathe in the beauty and not be drawn into a conversation with God.
He has perfumed the countless blossoms of the Orange , Lemon, Grapefruit, and Lime Trees; He has sweetly scented the Jasmine and Oleander; He has caused the dew* to fall upon the grass so as to make it glow with a vibrant green sheen; and all of nature witnesses to His love and glory.
It is early at sunrise that the Holy Ghost quickens the intellect and soul and calls one to attention to witness to the True, the Good, and the Beautiful. God, the artist of life, with His pastel palette, has painted the cotton candy clouds orange; He has painted some clouds red; He has caused one to shimmer in yellow; He has illustrated several clouds green-gray; He has caused one cloud to arrive late for the morning fire works; there it is now, pulling itself up over the horizon and staring at us with its violently violet visage.
Have you ever looked at an individual Orange Blossom and considered it in its essence?
Each individual Orange Blossom is a visual Gospel bringing us the good news of love and testifying to the endless profusion of Grace pouring forth from our God and it is a reminder of His perfectly simple Divine Nature (Theologically speaking, a nature which has no parts is simple, God is Divine Spirit/Simple. Man is complex; body and spirit/ parts) and the entire Orange Tree is, looked at with the eyes of love, a Theological Treatise testifying to Truth.
Each individual Orange Blossom, its beauty realised in created perfection, bathed in perfume, is but one possible spark, among nature’s countless examples, that can cause neurons to fire and begin to cast light so one can see the truth about His Divine Nature.
Truly, God is love. And love is action.
Love is action. It seeks its object. Man. That beautiful and terrifying truth is what nature is dying to tells us if we but stop a moment and listen. God created us and we will not rest until we rest in Him (St. Augustine) and He will not rest; love constantly is seeking us out in a million different creative ways.
The beautiful Orange Blossom is a revelation. Each individual Orange Blossom is a visual Gospel which God has incensed with a glorious perfume and the attentive individual, prompted by The Holy Ghost, can read in its beautiful perfection all about the profusion of Grace poured forth from God’s inexhaustible and inextinguishable love.
And each individual Orange Blossom, on every single Orange Tree on Earth that has ever, or will ever, exist, considered together, is but the first letter in an infinite alphabet of love (God’s language) spoken into being. All of creation is but God’s love sonnet sung endlessly..
Creatio Ex nihilo (creation out of nothing) means that both the Orange Blossom and we are willed to exist - called forth from no thing - and everything in nature reminds us of this - that God is love and love is God and love is action.
*Rorate caeli desuper et nubes pluant justum
(Drop down dew, ye heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain the just
Wellington sunrise
Fence line trees that look like a dazzling fireworks display
http://lee.ifas.ufl.edu/Hort/GardenPubsAZ/Starburst_Clerodendrum.pdf
Cracker Roses
