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The Prayer Life of Roses
Rev. Dr. Gina Rose Halpern
 I am
looking at the most abundant bouquet of roses picked
from my spiritual directors garden. One rose with outer
edges of dark red and inner petals of cream now sits in
a turquoise bowl. In the gathering of the flowers, my
director snipped it off because it was past its perfect
state and was beginning to drop its petals. Other
roses, from the same bush, were just in bud and would
open slowly. I stooped and gathered the fragile blossom,
knowing that this tender, vulnerable, almost lost rose
was the answer to my spiritual inquiry.
What is the true nature of prayer? Does prayer grow and
ripen over time? Why are we most open and accessible to
the transformative power of prayer when we are most
vulnerable and almost lost? What do the roses know about
surrender with ease to the passage of time and change
that I do not? What could I learn from the prayer lives
of the roses?
Now in two vases in front of my computer, these roses
are speaking to me of prayer.
I know a little of the way of roses. Cut from many
different rose bushes but all of the same species each
rose has a unique quality. On one stem is a flaming rose
with a bright yellow interior and a fringe of dark
orange at the edge of each petal. It looks as if it were
illuminated from an inner flame. Another rose has soft
coral petals opening to reveal an interior mandala. At
the center of this rose is the treasure house of pollen
for bees that will become love drunk with their late
summer beauty. With legs all covered with pantaloons of
pollen dust, they will slowly fly home to deliver their
gifts. This pollen, will be transformed in the dark
mysterious center of the hive into – honey… honey
carrying the essence of roses. Long after the rose has
lost the last petal some soul of rose-being will still
endure on the tongue.
 I know
that some of these newly picked roses with their buds
still tightly wound will never unfold into their full
glory. They will hold their posture as perfect buds and
slowly droop their heads. For these roses their beauty
lies not in what they did not become but in the
perfection of what they are until they are gone. How
many wedding bouquets of perfect baby roses, have been
preserved as loving reminders of that special day? Those
rose buds fulfilled their destiny.
My Grandmother’s name was Rose. She was very like the
soft apricot to pink late summer roses. Fully open to
the sun, wide petals, embracing every speck of light,
Grandma Rose returning it all back to us in perfect
sweetness. My Grandmother was transplanted to the sandy
soil of New Jersey at the turn of the century. She was a
Russian Rose that managed to put down root and flourish
the soil so foreign from her origins. I imagine the vast
flood of Roses being transplanted to American soil over
the years. Wild Irish Roses, that managed to survive the
potato famines found their homes here, put down roots
and blossomed, in Boston, and New York. In small alleys
and tiny backyards hemmed in by asphalt and violence.
Roses bloomed. What were the prayers of these roses? I
imagine that at first they prayed just to live, to find
a kind spot of earth that would support them with the
basics of water and a bit of sun. They prayed to
continue growing year after year, and so they did.
Families flourished and took cuttings of these original
roses and with careful attention began new plants, in
distant gardens. The cross-pollinated, and unlike the
endless conflicts between England and Ireland and the
two warring factions of Ireland itself, some diplomatic
bee carried a bit of pollen from that Wild Irish rose
into the heart of some formal English tea rose, and the
magic happened, some new rose was born.
My father is a gardener. In my childhood I remember him
tenderly placing rose cuttings into the mulched and
prepared garden bed filled with worms and rich compost.
I think from watching my father tend his roses, that
this is the way God tends us, though in my family, we
never spoke of God. I know that without ever hearing
one consciously uttered word of prayer, I learned about
God, watching my father tend his roses. And weather or
not those roses ever heard one blessing, “ May you
flourish and bloom” from my fathers mouth those roses
were being constantly prayed for with love and care and
attention.
My father would begin with a little twig of rose.
Looking at that twig who could imagine that it would
ever put out lush green leaves and fragrant blossoms. My
father would prepare the twig with his penknife and dip
it into root hormone. He would dig the perfect hole,
just so deep and just so wide, dampening the soil he
would place the twig in the ground tap in the soil
around it and place a gallon mayonnaise jar over the
twig to act as a mini hot house. Then we waited. Faith
is in the waiting for what you cannot see but somehow
believe in spite of every thing, that something
mysterious will happen. I learned about faith, in my
Father’s garden. Each day after work we would go out to
see if anything had transpired. Faith means you keep
showing up. We would water, and look and wonder what
might happen. Faith is in the belief that beyond what
your eyes can tell you there is a hope, or better yet a
knowing that there is a mystery unfolding just beyond
our sight.
But what were the twigs that hoped to be roses, what
were they praying? Roses pray in the language beyond
words where cell sparks to cell and says live, root,
leaf, bud and bloom. I think these are the prayers of
roses, But I think these are also the unspoken prayers
of the soul, our souls. Might we consider ourselves as
offspring of those early transplanted roses all arriving
from foreign soils hoping to find a way to thrive. And
then one day our eyes can witness the manifestation of
those prayers, and of the attention of the faithful
gardener.
One day that small brown twig that I could not ever as a
child imagine would be a rose, one day a leaf appears
and then another and another. Maybe the rose did not
bloom the first year. My father would prune it. The
cutting seemed so cruel, but he would let me know that
pruning made the roots grow deep and strong over the
winter.
In spite of all of our attention not all of the roses
survived, there would be sadness in the spring when
someone did not put out that first green leaf, but later
there would be rejoicing at the first buds, and the
blossoms that followed.
And I remember this, my favorite rose in the garden of
my childhood, it was called the Peace rose.
 Over the
years I have planted many gardens from Maine to
Massachusetts, I transplanted, irises from my fathers
garden all the way to California. But I did not ever
have my Father’s success with growing roses, Was I too
impatient, did I lack faith? Did I forget about the
prayers of roses?
One day, late summer visiting in Seattle, we planned a
trip to the museums and to a picnic in a park, arriving
late after a day of what felt like missed opportunities.
The museum, was closed, so no viewing of Northwest
Indian and Buddhist Art. No gazing at the
mouthwatering, eye candy of contemporary glass
sculpture. Parking was thin and I was feeling the
anticipatory grief of pending departure. As we sat in
the café splitting a turkey sandwich on rye bread, my
dear friend said this spontaneous prayer, “thank you for
those who planted and harvested the tomatoes, and those
who made the bread, and for the life of the turkey.” In
that instant everything shifted. I saw the light in the
café and the color of the walls. The sandwich was almost
to my mouth but I whipped out my camera and snapped a
picture with my hand and my beloved friend in it. I
wanted to have a record of that moment that shifted from
sorrow to appreciation.
By the time we arrived at the picnic everyone was
packing up. Our mood had shifted from “another
disappointment, to another possibility.” We walked over
a low green hill and entered the back of the Seattle
rose garden. In spite of all bad news of war and the
sorrow and suffering in the world, we had re-entered
Eden.
Just as we stepped into the path, sighing with the warm
beauty, we heard a violin call and then a guitar answer.
And there like further magic was the beginning of a
Jewish wedding. A chuppa, a Jewish prayer shawl, was
suspended like a wing of blessing waiting for the bride
and groom to enter this garden sanctuary.
I planted myself behind a pale rosebush taking it all in
until I realized that I was being a wedding crasher. So
we began to roam through the garden. In that warm late
afternoon my friend said, “look, the bees are so drunk
with scent and too heavy with pollen to fly home.” My
heart flipped over as he cupped each blossom with his
artist hands. I wished for my camera but the last of the
film, had been used to capture the moment of Turkey
sandwich revelation.
When the bride and groom arrived, we surrendered to the
fact that the whole day felt, like it had brought us to
that moment of witnessing with the roses, this ancient
ritual of love and devotion. We planted ourselves in the
shade of one old pale pink rosebush now of tree-like
stature.
Here in the midst of such abundant beauty the words of
Israel, were spoken weaving the circle of the sacred
before the ring was even given. I felt the connection to
my Jewish roots, across Europe our ancestors had come,
My Grandma Rose was there in the garden with us. My
family and the family of this unknown couple, our
families had made their exodus to the promised land. Had
they brought the seeds of roses with them? Certainly the
seeds of scripture, the Song of Songs that great love
poem that somehow survived the scrutiny of editors calls
us to the deepest, wildest, most sensuous love. “
I am the rose of Sharon… I am my beloved’s and my
beloved is mine.” Down through the centuries the
covenant has renewed over and over bringing us to the
wedding in the Seattle rose garden. With a heavenly
host, of angel roses, and us, looking on.
What were the prayers that the roses uttered to me that
day? They reminded me about the power of belief.
The roses were not even whispering that afternoon they
were singing rose scented Hallelujah's- “In the
recognition of all the abundant sorrow of the world, we
are not calling you, to fasting and ashes, we are
calling you to the wedding feast of beauty.” It seemed
that we had been guided, to this moment in the rose
garden for our souls to be renewed.
As the fragile glass was broken, a reminder to enjoy
our fragile lives. I had a thought that somewhere, a
Muslim couple were celebrating a wedding in another rose
garden, and the roses were rejoicing there too. In fact
the vocation of roses all over the world for people of
all faiths and races and ages, seemed to be a
celebration of love. Just pure love. Would these brides
dry the roses from their weddings with collective
tenderness?
Do all roses pray the same way? What is the prayer life
of a rose? Some roses are wild and showy, dancing with
full exuberance in the late summer sun. These are the
roses singing in the choir of creation. They call us to
witness and listen to their hymns of delight.
Some roses hold themselves close to the heart, never
fully revealing their interior to the mortal eye. These
roses are the contemplatives, folded inward in prayer
for the sorrows of the world. Contemplative roses hold a
place of remembering the possibility of healing in the
face of suffering.
I remember once asking a Buddhist teacher about the goal
of spiritual practice. I asked, “Was the goal of
spiritual practice, enlightenment or the path.” He
answered with this cryptic phrase that became the source
of my spiritual inquiry, “until the plant dies it can
still flower and bear fruit.”
Is every rose a prayer? What are the prayers of those
wild Rugosa roses that cover hedges with their magenta
wonder on the remote islands off the coast of Maine.
These roses are the evangelists calling out to us in the
wilderness. These roses bloom in the desert like the
early Christian Desert Fathers and Mothers. They call us
to remember and reconnect ourselves to the power of the
elemental forces of Spirit in wind, and the passion of
wild places that can awaken us out of our dreary
slumbering selves.
“Rosa Rugosa
From Wikipedia, Rosa rugosa (Rugosa Rose, Japanese Rose,
or Ramanas Rose) is a species of rose native to eastern
Asia, in northeastern China, Japan, Korea and
southeastern Siberia, where it grows on the coast, often
on sand dunes. The Japanese name is (ハマナス(hamanasu)),
meaning "shore pear".
It is a suckering shrub which develops new plants from
the roots and forms dense thickets 1–1.50 m tall with
stems densely covered in numerous short, straight thorns
3-10 mm long. The leaves are 8–15 cm long, pinnate with
5–9 leaflets, most often 7, each leaflet 3–4 cm long,
with a distinctly corrugated (rugose, hence the species'
name) surface. The flowers are pleasantly scented, dark
pink to white, 6–9 cm across, with somewhat wrinkled
petals; flowering is from summer to autumn (June to
September in the northern hemisphere).
The hips are large, 2–3 cm diameter, and often shorter
than their diameter, not elongated like most other rose
hips; in late summer and early autumn the plants often
bear fruit and flowers at the same time. The leaves
typically turn bright yellow before falling in autumn.”
How amazing to “bear fruit and flowers at the same
time.”
Are the wild roses calling your soul to repent, a
thousand hours spent behind the wheel of your car in
traffic, absent from your wild heart?
On an island that you could only reach at low tide, the
wild Rugosa roses would bloom with a fragrance not found
in any tended garden. You would find them in late summer
like a small community of believers singing in the
wilderness. These roses did not possess the hundred
petals of their garden cousins. These roses each had a
nimbus of transitory perfume that surrounded them like a
halo. After their petals had been blown, to the strong
northwest winds, they turned their sight inward like
monks in the Himalaya. Like the monks, generating heat
from their deep internal spiritual practices, these
roses produced enormous ruby red rose hips filled with
vitamin C. Perfect for making rosehip jam for the long
winters. These rose hips fed the winter birds and became
the decorations for Christmas trees. These roses carry
the prayer of freedom.
Even at the moment when you answer the last email,
remember your wild true self exists and says yes to
life. Just remembering these roses is a reconnection to
the Source of Being.
Every rose has instruction on prayer encoded in its DNA.
How do we come to learn the prayers of roses?
My friend is a gardener. We would roll her van to the
garden center and abandon ourselves to a hedonistic orgy
of gardening delight, surrendering our wills and
wallets, to buy this and that treasure to plant in her
most beautiful gardens.
One day with guilt and sadness, she confessed that when
she gets angry and frustrated she withholds love from
those closest to her. I encouraged her when stuck
emotionally, to view her friends and family as she would
the flowers in her garden.
I suggested that she listen closely to their messages,
paying particular attention to what was unspoken. I
suggested that she pay attention to her loved ones as if
their thoughts came from flowers, sent in silence. I
said “tend your family by believing in them when they
are dormant, fertilize and nurture them and encouraging
them to bloom, and celebrating new growth with
delight.”
One month I bought a dozen roses at the beginning of an
intensive week of study on Christianity. As we moved the
classes from room to room, through out the church that
housed our school, we carried the vase of flowers with
us. Slowly as our students opened to each other and to
the nature of the material we were engaging with, the
roses opened too. As we ended our five days of study
together, the roses were drooping and dropping their
petals.
There is a Native American ceremony called “pelting with
flowers.” We adopted this beautiful ritual for blessing
the students as the moved into the process of becoming
ordained clergy. On this day one student filled her
hands with the abundance of freely given rose petals
from the flowers that had been our companions of the
week. Throwing them in the air, she uttered a blessing
of joy. I turned up my face to receive the petals
falling softly and quickly like the kisses of a small
child. I gathered them off the rug in a basket and
brought them home.
We call strung beads used for spiritual practice
rosaries for a reason. Originally, the beads were made
of rose petals. The stories or myths of rosaries, tells
that Pilgrims would pick roses and carry them, planning
that they would become the offering of flowers at the
end of their pilgrimage. When the way was long and the
flowers were drooping with the spirits of the pilgrims
under the hot sun, which pilgrim began to wrap a frail
rose petal around a thread taken from the hem of their
garment? As the pilgrim rolled the petals between their
fingers did they pray, may my spirit bloom like the
rose? And, I imagine those early rosaries, that they
retained a faint lingering scent of their last blooming
incarnation, as they accompanied pilgrims on their
devotional journeys.
Sitting at my kitchen table I thought I would try my
hand at rolling the rose petals into beads. The process
was slow but as I rolled the petals between my fingers
over a toothpick, I found myself falling like the petals
softly into prayer. I was praying gratitude for the
beauty of the flowers that had traveled as a moveable
altar from room to room.
In a way, the presence of the roses turned the library
and the downstairs office/classroom into a sanctuary. As
I touched the petals, I thought of each of our students
and I sent them a prayer. “May your path be easy. May
your burdens be light. May you and those you love, and
those you serve, be blessed in every way.”
I rolled about a dozen beads that looked more like
rabbit pellets than rose blossom beads, having turned
brown under my fingertips. I had not started my bead
craft project as a prayer but that is what it led me to
without even thinking. The beads are not as beautiful as
their last incarnation as flowers but they sit in a
white clamshell with small pebbles gathered from the
beach and I know that they are precious jewels.
A student says that she wants to deepen her practice of
active listening. I ask her if she has ever had any role
models and she says no, but then maybe her mother who
would pray for her children at night when she could not
sleep. My student is a gardener. I ask her if she is
familiar with the poems of Mary Oliver who asks us in
her poem Wild Geese “what will you do with your one wild
and precious life?” Mary Oliver seems to know how to
actively listen to the prayers of the natural world. In
her poems, she reports to us, the remarkable psalms that
the grasshopper whispers to her on a summer’s day.
Roses pray with offering their whole being to us as
scent and beauty. Roses ask us to listen to them, to
adore them and to cup our hands around their blossoms,
feeling their skin and feeling Godspirit in the velvet
of a palest pink petal, under our thumb. Most roses are
sensualists. They call us to bury our faces and our
fears in their healing presence and breathe in their
message of comfort. When we lift up our faces from the
heart of the rose we are illuminated, with that rose
rapture that sings God to the senses.
And, being, that every rose is different, roses pray
with the fullness of diversity that calls us each to
blossom in our own way. If you could picture yourself as
a rose, what color would you be? Would you be a rose
growing in the comfort of a carefully tended garden? Are
you a wild rose singing in the wilderness? Looking into
the heart of the rose can you feel it, sense it,
offering up a prayer that you would be filled, with the
joy of beauty, and the knowledge of a life well given,
well lived, well loved.
And what happens when we do take time to smell the
roses?
The prophet Isaiah from the
Hebrew scriptures tells us 58:11
“The Lord will guide thee and
give thee rest continually, and will fill thy soul with
brightness, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and thou
shalt be like a watered garden.
 My prayer
today?
May you,
May we,
Believe in the miracle that says we too might bloom like
the rose.
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