Author: Arron Miller

Holiness

Holiness does not consist in never having erred or sinned. Holiness increases the capacity for conversion, for repentance, for willingness to start again and, especially, for reconciliation and forgiveness.

Benedict XVI

Holiness is not so much our work in the garden of the Lord, but God’s work in us as living members of the body of Christ. It is His work in us that produces holiness. Holiness consists in our fidelity to the truth and to our cooperation with his grace and mercy.

Benedict was right, holiness does not consist in having never sinned of erred, but it does consist in our commitment to return always to the Lord, in turning toward Him in every event and circumstance of life. Holiness is faithfulness in the good times and the bad. It is being faithful even while we are still sinners.  Faithfulness in remaining always at the foot of so great a tree. Remaining close to the shade of the almighty.

Holiness is a life lived and directed always toward God, toward goodness, love and truth. A life well lived is not always perfect, but rather is a life being perfected. Life is messy and for the bramble life is often hard. The desert of the spiritual life is real, but brambles tend to thrive in the dry desert, though life there is not easy. For the bramble, holiness consists in being what it is, in drought, reaching deep with its roots for water. In the scorching sun, protecting itself with its thick skin and rough bark. In the cold and wind, it finds itself sturdy and well rooted.

The bramble is hardy in all seasons, and in this is found it’s holiness. Holiness for the bramble is faithfulness. But faithfulness is not always easy, but its reward is sweet.

“Lord, may your grace be ever with us as we journey this life. In the good times and in the bad may You help us to be faithful, to turn always toward You and toward the Cross. May we put out into deep water the roots of our faith, hope and love, and may we, at this life’s end, be found worthy of life eternal with You. Amen”

The Thornbush and the Rose

Long has it been since I have written here. But maybe so such is the way of the bramble of the Lord, blooming only at appointed times and during appointed seasons. Nevertheless, it is time to write again, to explore the depths of what it means to be a bramble in the garden of the Lord.

Seasons come and seasons go, time moves ever forward and so life in the garden moves on. For the bramble life is slow, creeping ever closer to the light and climbing ever higher in the shadow of the tree.

There, shaded by the mercy of so good a God, the bramble blossoms, pleasing only the tree in the garden and brightening, but for a moment, the shade beneath its branches.

Life for the bramble has been busy, dark and new. Amidst the flowers in the garden has grown a new relationship, a new friendship seemingly impossible. Within the shadows of the bramble has grown a beautiful rose. Wrapped in the thorns of the bramble it has blossomed. A beautiful rose, single and solitary, its home now in the heart of the bramble. Together they will grow, pleasing the Lord at their appointed times, ravishing the garden with their beauty in due season.

This new companionship between the bramble and the rose is fitting. Both are brambles in the garden of the Lord, but each is different, she is beautiful and ravishing, splendid in her beauty and her bloom is fragrant and pleasing to the eye. She brings color to this old, withered bramble, delighting him with her pleasant scent and joyful beauty. She indeed is a presence to behold.

And yet the Bramble of the Lord remains a still and ever present thornbush. Beautiful in his own right, but different. His branches reach far and wide, he delights to see the whole of the garden from the base of so great a tree.

How lovely is this garden of the Lord, how sweet is its air in spring. 

Until we meet again,

The Bramble of the Lord

A Bramble in the Garden of the Lord

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines a “bramble” as:

1: any of a genus (Rubus) of usually prickly shrubs of the rose family including the raspberries and blackberries; also: the fruit of a bramble
2: a rough prickly shrub or vine
Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, a young Carmelite nun of the late 19th Century, describes souls as flowers in the garden of the Lord and it is because of this description that she is known as the Little Flower. In her Autobiography, The Story of a Soul, Thérèse speaks of the beauty of great saints as lilies and roses, and of lesser saints as little flowers. Of these little flowers she writes:

“He [Jesus] opened the book of nature before me, and I saw that every flower He has created has a beauty of its own, that the splendor of the rose and the lily’s whiteness do not deprive the violet of its scent nor make less ravishing the daisy’s charm. I saw that if every little flower wished to be a rose, Nature would lose her spring adornments, and the fields would be no longer enameled with their varied flowers.”

And so it is in the garden of the Lord. There is found a variety of trees and shrubs, flowers and grasses. Each created by God and for God to honor, adore, glorify, and delight, each in its own way, according to the beauty given it by the Lord. It is thus that I have come to see, to understand this mystery of God’s garden, that within it there are no weeds; that is, there is nothing there that does not belong, for all was created by God and all was created for Him.

It is from this thought, reflecting on my own life, that I too; like Thérèse, am neither a lilly or a rose. Neither am I a little flower. No, when I survey the beauty of God’s garden, the loveliness of all that he has planted there, I find, hiding in the shade, curled and bent, harsh and uninviting, a most unpleasant and dreadful shrub. It is an unruly and wild bush, prickly and unapproachable, seemingly unwelcome in so well kept a garden. Lurking beneath the tree, and watered only by that which falls to it from the branches above, planted firmly by the Lord, lives… the bramble.

And so this journey begins. I am The Bramble of the Lord, an unruly shrub, full of thorns, bent and broken… but like the little flowers of the field, the beauty of the rose or the whiteness of the lilly do not rob me of my own spring time glory, for the even the thornbush blooms and bears fruit at the appointed time.

Until next time,

The Bramble of the Lord

The Journey Begins

Welcome and Thanks for joining me!

I am new to the blogging world and if by some chance you have stumbled upon my page I ask you to take a moment and reflect on what I might mean about being a “bramble of the Lord”? I am currently working on my first post and ask you to be patient with me while I get things up and running.

Thank you kindly,

The Bramble of the Lord!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton

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