Lavender Heaven
Fr. Tony’s Mid-week Message July 9, 2014
When Elena and I first moved to Ashland, John Sanders
graciously let us live with him in his house up on Terrace Street for a couple
of months as we waited to get into our house.
One day we went walking, and found ourselves at park and water
reservoir. Though in the dead of winter,
the dried bushes through which we walked had a heavenly scent: fragrant as living flowers, slightly spicy
and with a clean, sunny odor. We later
found out that they were French lavender, desiccated and left standing through
the winter. Since then, we have come
to see that just as Portland is the city of Roses, Ashland is a garden of
lavender. Its light blue to deep violet
spikes are omnipresent in town and the farms around it. They are a major element in our Trinity
Garden and Labyrinth.
Lavender is the flower, or at least one of the flowers,
referred to in the Bible as “spikenard.”
The Ancient Greeks called lavender nardos,
from the Syrian town Naarda where its main commercial production was
centered. It is the essential oil in
the balm used to anoint the body of Jesus for his burial (John 12:1-10; Matthew
26:6-13; Mark 14:3-9). In the Bible’s
poem to erotic love, the Song of Songs, it is listed as one of the scents sure
to arouse the deepest of passions (4:14):
“nard and saffron, calamus
and cinnamon, with every kind of incense tree, with myrrh and aloes, and all
the finest spices.” The Queen of Sheba
thus offered the following gifts to King Solomon: spikenard, frankincense, and
myrrh (Song of Songs 1:12-13; cf. 1
Kings 10:2). Medieval mystic Hildegard
von Bingen (1098-1179) prescribed lavender water for migraines: a mixture of
lavender essential oil and distilled spirits.
We have
a great way to celebrating this wonderful season of lavender in bloom in
Ashland, and commemorate the spiritual and biblical overtones of the scent. Wednesday
July 16, 3:30-5:30 p.m. in the Parish Hall, we will have the first of three
classes called “Faith Crafts,” when we do things with our hands to celebrate
things in our hearts. In the first
class, we will learn how to weave lavender wands with ribbons and lavender stalks
from the Trinity Garden and Fr. Tony’s home garden. In the next two classes, July 23 and 30, we
will learn about praying with beads and rosaries (both Marian and Anglican), and
actually string or knot rosaries for our own use or to give as gifts. All are welcome.
--Fr.
Tony+
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