{"id":611,"date":"2014-04-25T11:44:08","date_gmt":"2014-04-25T16:44:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jenniferfitz\/?p=611"},"modified":"2015-08-25T21:16:51","modified_gmt":"2015-08-26T02:16:51","slug":"real-life-prayer-gardening","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jenniferfitz\/2014\/04\/real-life-prayer-gardening\/","title":{"rendered":"Real Life Prayer Gardening"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"
What your prayer life needs is a Frisbee dog.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

My first luminous mystery this week went to Margaret Rose Realy<\/a>, the Catholic Gardening Lady.\u00a0 She\u2019s the author of A Garden of Visible Prayer: Creating a Personal Sacred Space One Step at a Time<\/em><\/a>, which is the book that helped me create what you see in this very attractive cell phone photo.\u00a0 I think of her a lot this time of year, because I pray poorly indoors, so I end up going outside, and sometimes even end up in the official \u201cprayer garden\u201d part of my yard.<\/p>\n

What you see:<\/p>\n

Plants that aren\u2019t dead.<\/strong>\u00a0 Took a lot of trial and error, and finally a husband who installed an irrigation system, to discover species that could survive this particular corner.\u00a0 It faces southeast and is not shaded, and thus in the summer average morning temperatures are in the triple-digits.\u00a0 Early spring is the only time it looks quite this cheerful \u2014 in part because there\u2019s a preponderance of early-spring-blooming plants, since nothing put in the ground after May 15 is likely to survive, and the garden store always sells in March \u2013 April that which blooms in March \u2013 April.<\/p>\n

Seashells.<\/strong> That\u2019s the blurry mass of white stuff in the center.\u00a0 The first time we went to the beach with the kids, several years ago, I collected a bazillion seashells. I can\u2019t help myself, they\u2019re all so interesting, even the broken the ones.\u00a0 Especially the broken ones.\u00a0 So I had all these grocery bags of damp, salty, seaweed-y seashells.\u00a0 And of course I live in a very small house, if you calculate size by creating a ratio of junk-to-square-feet.\u00a0 So where to put the seashells? And then I remembered that seashells come from outside, and thus . . . they can stay outside.<\/p>\n

This makes me happy, because it means when I go to the beach, I can bring home as many shells as I want.\u00a0 You can\u2019t say that about many things.<\/p>\n

A garden gnome.<\/strong>\u00a0 Thus far I\u2019ve failed in my efforts at acquiring a suitable piece of sacred art for the prayer garden.\u00a0 Meanwhile, we had this gutter running right through the view from our screen porch.\u00a0 I kept trying to hide the gutter, which is not attractive even by people-who-collect-junk standards.\u00a0 Finally I gave it up, and claimed the spouse\u2019s garden gnome from another corner of the yard.\u00a0 He (the gnome, not the spouse) was appointed master of the waterworks.\u00a0 He\u2019s got a large overturned flower pot, broken just right, for a cottage, and a collection of overturned broken tea cups for his various pets.\u00a0 The place is so much homier now that there\u2019s someone to keep company the toad that lives behind the bush.<\/p>\n

Rosary Dog<\/strong>.\u00a0 I\u2019m a sucker for a good ball dog, always have been.\u00a0 So now the dog knows that when she hears me grab a plastic rosary off the hook in the kitchen, it\u2019s time to bolt outside and find a toy.\u00a0 In this photo she\u2019s posing with her chewed-up Frisbee, but FYI it\u2019s actually easier to pray while throwing a tennis ball.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

So that\u2019s my report.\u00a0 Cheer up Margaret Rose Realy<\/a> (who could use it) by reporting in with your garden updates.\u00a0 Thanks!<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My first luminous mystery this week went to Margaret Rose Realy, the Catholic Gardening Lady.\u00a0 She\u2019s the author of A Garden of Visible Prayer: Creating a Personal Sacred Space One Step at a Time, which is the book that helped me create what you see in this very attractive cell phone photo.\u00a0 I think of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,60],"tags":[195,197,10,194,193,196],"class_list":["post-611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-liturgical-living","category-sacred-art-music","tag-gnomes","tag-gutters","tag-margaret-rose-realy","tag-prayer-gardens","tag-rosary-dog","tag-waterworks"],"yoast_head":"\nReal Life Prayer Gardening<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"My first luminous mystery this week went to Margaret Rose Realy, the Catholic Gardening Lady.\u00a0 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