Seasons of Life written by George W. Jones edited and illustrated by Dan Hardison
Seasons of Life
words by George W. Jones photographs and art by Dan Hardison additional photos from Epiphany Mission, Sherwood, Tennessee, 1940s and 1950s designed and edited by Dan Hardison a Windscape book
Contents Forward Spring Summer Autumn Winter Death and Resurrection The Gardener The Cathedral Ghost of a Garden Epilogue
Forward In a small valley of the Southern Cumberland Mountains of Tennessee lies the community of Sherwood and Epiphany Mission. The Rev. George W. Jones served as the Mission s first priest from 1932 until his death in 1952. A mission church providing for the needs of the people during the turbulent times of the Great Depression, World War II, and the failing economy of a remote mountain region. Among the many ways Father Jones gave to the church and the people of the valley was his gift of writing. Nature and its interaction with mankind were a popular theme in his writings. In Seasons of Life we follow four of his poems: Death and Resurrection, The Gardener, The Cathedral, and Ghost of a Garden as he observes the changing seasons in the valley and equates the seasons of nature with the seasons of man. Springtime is birth time, the time of quickening; Summer is the time of growth, of fullness; Autumn sees maturity, ripeness, and passing; And Winter is death. To illustrate Seasons of Life, color photographs are provided that were taken in the Cumberland and Southern Smoky Mountains that reflect the area surrounding Epiphany Mission. There are photographs of flowers that represent the Mission Garden that was built by Father Jones and the Mission s young boys. Also included are actual black and white photographs of the Mission, its garden, and the people that made this valley such a special place. Dan Hardison
Death and Resurrection Spring
T was in April although the day was a bitter day smacking of winter rather than spring. Sharp gusty winds, icily cold, seethed and stormed beneath bleak heavens.
F orward, and a bit froward, greenness and bloom recoiled remorseful and penitent. Human kind appeared frost bitten and animals stood with lowered heads. The elements were neither lovely nor kind that April day.
A nd I was ill with a ghastly headache accompanied by devastating nausea. Toward evening I lay on my bed utterly exhausted. The day s display of nature on a cruel rampage would alone have shaken good courage.
N ot seriously ill, I was nevertheless racked with pain. My mind was greatly disordered. I felt as though death was quite near. Through the windows I watched the dying day that had hurt me.
B y now the wind barely whispered, as if the Master had spoken Peace, be still. The murky silver gray skies were fading to darkness. Everywhere nature seemed so obviously sorry to have been wicked, seemed so contrite, so subdued.
A s full darkness withdrew all things from my sight, I found that I too was subdued. At last the Master s hand was upon my brow He had spoken to my turbulent spirit Peace, be still.
N ow I felt no pain, no discomfort, only serenity, tranquility, peace. Travail and burden bearing now lay behind. After storm... calm, after pain... anodyne, after labor... rest, all things seemed finished.
H ow passing sweet! Lo, I go with Thee Lord, my hand in thine. And by his side I went down and down into deepest darkness and fell asleep. And this was as death!
A nd then, resurrection, a new day! I was awake, alive, conscious, without an ailment in the world. The new day was as miraculous as resurrection foreign to winter, skipping spring, smacking of summer. Clear bright sunlight warmed my soul to the depths of the wellsprings of gladness.
T rees decked in tender green beckoned to come out and live. Utterly forgetful of yesterday s bitterness filling the world with rare and magic perfume that, like incense, went up to God with the prayers of saints.
H appy birds from swaying treetops sang solemn Te Deums. Today the wind was a tender lover, warming, caressing, and begetting one s love. Surely I had entered the edge of Heaven.
S o I believe is death and such is the assurance of Easter. To that end were our Lord s incarnation, precious death, and mighty resurrection. To die is to pass through darkness the night of weeping to reach the morning of song, to enter the gates of Heaven.
A lleluia!
The Gardener Summer
L ord, you made me a gardener in your Sherwood garden. I've toiled through the seasons and the years. Many souls that had their roots in cinders now grow in soil that fertile richness bears.
B ut Lord, some of my plants that should be a rose or violet persist in growing up obnoxious weeds. Lord, I pray, make all plants in my garden grow to Thy glory and to fulfill Thy needs.
M y son, since the day of good earth's creation, Mine it has been to sow some good seeds of grain; Mine the wisdom to send the proper seasons; Mine to send the sunshine and the rain.
T hroughout the ages I've yearned for each plant to reach perfection, to provide the means to every end I go.
B ut I have never forced a single plant to please me. I've never even forced a single plant to grow.
The Cathedral Autumn
T he love of God constrains His child to conceive that the mountains have walled Sherwood into a vast cathedral with the arch of the firmament its dome. The mountain squarely west becomes the high altar of the cathedral.
T he trees holding half their leaves are bright red gold, the corn is ruddy gold, and the warm light filtered through autumn haze is pale glowing gold. Fallen leaves carpeting the temple and raked into a hundred mounds by a hundred thurifers make incense.
A nd the smoke rises thick before the mighty altar and dims the great cathedral as it climbs, spirals, weaves upward and upward into the celestial dome.
T he earth smells of ripeness ripe harvest, ripe apples, ripe fodder spicy and sweet. The last warmth of the aging year is tenderly caressing.
T he day is breathless. There is neither speech nor language but nature is very clear, Be still. Know God in the work of His hands.
T he sinking sun all day long veiled by golden haze at last becomes visible, then portentous, as the huge disk above the mountain altar sinks lower, lower to the altar throne and into the far-flung monstrance of golden sunset clouds.
A ll the daylong the heavenly dome and all its roof has declared His glory. And then day is done and the shadows of the evening as the vanguards of night steal across the sky.
T he sun, through the haze of incense the color of blood, even His precious Blood, is the symbol of the Host in benediction. The gates of heaven seem open very wide to man below.
O Jesus, now the day is done, with Thy tenderest blessings of calm and sweet repose, put Thy weary people to bed like little children all. The great altar is dark and it is night.
Ghost of a Garden Winter
T he garden at midnight, in the season of this writing, has been found as a gossamer thing just as the waning moon cleared the eastern mountain to plow through the stars.
T aking away the material substance of the garden and leaving it an ethereal thing. The real garden gone only the soul of the garden real.
T he garden at midnight brought to memory a visitor who once came to the garden altar and knelt and prayed there. She exclaimed...
W hen the Mission's last picture is painted, when all now living have passed from work to reward, when the garden altar and walls have crumbled and cockleburs grow on the ruin let us ask God to let us come back some Christmas to the ghost of this garden for a glorious midnight Mass.
O n that recent midnight, there was only a ghost of the garden. And in the ghost garden midnight Mass at the garden altar at some point in eternity, it seemed as rational as immortal life.
P erhaps it is childish to dwell on that Mass, even in fancy, but it is a sweet and lovely vision. A bit of heaven once of earth, come back to earth again.
A ll the acolytes the Mission ever had, all who were ever numbered with the Mission or the Greater Congregation.
A ll the children, assembled with the angels in the Mission garden.
A ll to whom faith was natural and all to whom faith was a struggle, no longer needing a creed in the light of mutual knowing.
E very voice lifted in heavenly paeans. The ghosts of all the candle flames that ever graced the Mission altars, the ghosts of all the incense ever offered.
P erhaps behind the garden altar, where now stands a statue of Holy Mary, she might really come and stand with the ghosts of all the roses that ever bloomed in the garden.
A nd she might actually hold in her arms no less than the eternal Christmas Child. While all the stars of the heavens gathered of their will for her diadem, pale in His blinding glory.