Crown of Thorns

This morning, we woke to a lovely blanket of snow. Spring was in full swing at my home, 6,000’ lower than Helder’s cabin; Easter was just around the corner. Spring comes late this high. Wood stove stoked, steaming mugs held with both hands, lap blankets, and woolen socks in place, tucked into matching leather ‘Morris’ chairs, we looked out on the scene through Helder’s glass garden wall on a snowy dreamland, fluffy bunches still drifting down. A profusion of hanging plants, plants on stands, and, of course, his tomato and lettuce plants he had started indoors to plant outdoors when it was time.

“Passerby, with the new snow, this would be a great morning to get the snowshoes off the wall and go about and see what our furry and feathery neighbors have been up to overnight. But first, would you help me take down some of the hanging plants one at a time so we can give them a good soaking in the sink?”

With Helder at the sink and me bringing the variety of ferns and ivy in their turn, Helder says,

“Did I ever tell you the story of that ‘Crown of Thorns’ in the corner?

One of the homes Claire and I built had a rather large south-facing glass wall and ‘Saltillo’ tile floors like this cabin, so we could grow many indoor plants. One of those was an impressive ‘Crown-of Thorns’. The one in the corner is a cutting from that plant. It was a messy plant, regularly dropping leaves on the Saltillo floor tiles and cleaning up after it was something of a hazard. The thorns were an inch and a half long. Four feet high and wide, with branches as big around as my thumb, drooping to the floor, it occupied an entire corner of the room, and in the spring, it was covered with stunning deep red blooms. This year, in particular, the blooms were profuse.

Good Friday, I woke early, brewed a hot cup, and proceeded to my morning chair to spend some one-on-one time with the Spirit, the lover of that small boy in the backyard. Stunned, I switched on a light to better see what I had just seen in the half-light. Every bloom that was on that magnificent plant was lying on the floor! I lacked the capacity to explain such a thing. I simply wept.

As I pondered what I had witnessed, I was comforted not so much as a witness to a miracle by some remote deity…but by the participation of Her good creation in the grief for the murder of Rabbi Jesus, an innocent good man, anointed and sent by the Spirit, by a flowering, leafy, and thorney member of the Holy Spirit’s good creation.“