The Beauty Above The Fountains

Whenever we go on a beach vacation, I like to walk in the early morning.
I am not a sun lover since I get sunburned much too easily.
I am not a person who can lounge at the beach for hours.
I like to watch the waves against the shore leaving shells and smooth stones for me to find.

I like to find an empty bench that is near a dock.
I can sit for quite a while, peaceful and still.
I watch as the water laps against the boards of the dock.
I have such a feeling of serenity when I am near the water.

My children would always know that I would eventually find my spot.
It would be somewhere on my morning walk that I claimed in my heart as my own.
It would be someplace quiet in those early morning hours.
It was my spot for the week that we were away.

After that time of stillness, wonder, and prayer, I would be refreshed and head home.
It was always my favorite time of day.
It was the time I looked forward to the most.
It was the alone time that I needed.

Knowing that about myself, I was so excited to go to a place that rejuvenates my spirit.
Longwood Gardens, in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, is one of my favorite places.
The Main Fountain Garden has been under a revitalization project for the past two years.
This year the restoration of the Main Fountain Garden has been revealed.

Pierre duPont designed Longwood Gardens himself.
You can see evidence of Mr. duPont’s extensive travel abroad everywhere you turn.
The Main Fountain Garden has a French feel to it.
There is a distinct similarity to Versailles.

While visiting the Villa d’Este in 1913, Pierre S. du Pont, the founder of Longwood Gardens, announced, “It would be nice to have something like this at home.” This was a sentiment shared by other wealthy Americans visiting Europe around the same time. American residential landscape design in the late 19th and early 20th centuries—now known as the “Country Place Era”—was driven by these educated and well-traveled individuals who had the desire and means to build elaborate European-style estates at home. Longwood Gardens, like these other estates, borrowed heavily from French, Italian, and English designs. But rather than rely on a professional landscape architect, Pierre S. du Pont designed Longwood Gardens himself. With the help of  his hand-picked staff of  talented engineers, electricians, and gardeners, he carried his ideas to fruition, often improvising along the way. The Main Fountain Garden at Longwood Gardens is a unique example of the melding of several European design influences. In overall concept, the Main Fountain Garden is more in the French style than any other. Its sprawling scale, symmetrical layout, and crisp allées of trees are all distinctly French. Mr. du Pont had viewed such allées throughout France, especially at Versailles and Champs-sur-Marne, although his main encounter with French gardens occurred several years after planting the 1921 allée in front of the recently built Conservatory. But what he especially noticed during his 1925 France trip was how a hillside could be walled and terraced to provide a fitting termination to a central vista, as well as to provide an elevated reservoir for gravity-fed fountains. (Colvin Randall, July 28, 2015)

The Main Fountain Garden was unveiled in 1931; du Pont would be pleased with the restoration.
Piece by piece the fountains, basins, and columns were dismantled and precisely categorized.
Painstaking work took place on the deteriorating limestone pieces.
Delicate sprays of water removed dirt and debris; repairs were made seamlessly.

Two of my daughters and I went to see the Main Fountain Garden show after dark.
People came early to claim their spot on the lawn, the low walls, and on an overlook above.
People claimed their spot much like I did on my morning walks at the beach.
My daughters and I stood in a central location, ready to take everything in.

The fountain show began.
I did not know where to look.
Water shot up into the sky and danced to the music.
LED lights lit the water in bright colors.

Water shot out of the fountains as high as 175 feet into the air.
We witnessed an amazing feat of engineering.
Oohs and aahs were heard throughout the crowd.
Phones were raised high in the air trying to capture the beauty.

Fire shot out of the water and lit up the night sky.
But there was another light.
There was something else that lit up the sky above our heads.
I looked up and saw a brilliant moon.

The moon was only half-full but incredibly bright.
Below the moon was another bright light.
Is that a satellite? One of my daughters asked.
Could that be a drone? The other asked, thinking she saw the light move.

That’s a planet, I said, not sure which one.
I made a mental note to research the night sky we witnessed when I got home.
I did research their question.
I discovered that we saw the planet Jupiter to the right of the moon.

There above an amazing fountain display, the moon shone.
There above high jets of water reaching 175 feet into the air, Jupiter was a light in the sky.
The beauty that was before us, designed by one man decades ago, was spectacular.
However, quietly, yet magnificently, God’s creation shone.

It shone.
God’s creation spoke to us above the beauty of the Gardens.
God will be heard.
God will be seen.

The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it, the world and all who live in it; for He founded it upon the seas and established it upon the waters. (Psalm 24:1, 2)

Everything we do creatively, points to what God has already done.
God gifts us with talents to produce such a place and such a display of beauty.
Yet through it all, God’s creation quietly shines.
God’s creation always shines above anything man can do.