Saint Thérèse of Lisieux (1873-1897), often called The Little Flower, was a French Carmelite nun who died of tuberculosis at just twenty-four. She lived an outwardly unremarkable life in a convent in Lisieux, Normandy.
Yet she was present yesterday. I felt a need to go to the Forest, I hadn’t been to the prairie at the former Renbaan for a while so headed there.
Before turning up Longue Queue I paused on one of the benches facing the Chapel of Saint Cornelius. I became aware of movement, of rustle. It was a couple of the stripy chipmunks which now seem so at home in the Forest. There is a picnic table just across the path. One of them headed over there, to see what remained of the day. The other perched on the shrine box of Saint Thérèse, nailed to a tree overlooking the chapel. It sat and watched me for fully five minutes and only moved on when a walking party came up the path.
I felt connected to the little things, the things which make their home yet are immigrants, that find sanctuary. I felt the design.