Even now...
God is making something new
There’s a cemetery that I pass on walks through my old New England town that’s host to people who lived centuries before. I’ve often thought of the lives they lived, how different from mine they were and yet how similar, too. We’re all human after all. But lately what’s caught my attention as I walk past that cemetery are the trees. Like the humans with which they share space, these trees once bloomed and flourished, and now - they’re dead.
It's a stark thing to see a dead tree in the midst of spring, let alone a whole grove of them, but that’s how it happens, right? The interconnectivity of trees is much like our own in the human family – though we don’t always notice it, we are attached to and belong to each other under the surface of things. What happens to one will happen to us all in time.
A grove of dead trees in a place of death stands out in a time of spring, but I can’t help but notice the new growth that’s happening at the base of each one of those dead trees. When I see it, I think of the balance of things, the life that comes from death, and I’m reminded that even now when there’s so much suffering and injustice, if we will stop and notice, we will find the new life quietly growing from the root, even now.
If public-facing Christians make a mockery of the faith through nationalistic rhetoric and worship of power and strength, won’t that necessarily lead people to want to find out who the real Jesus is, and what He really taught? If public resources are stripped away from aid organizations, won’t that encourage some of us to give in ways we haven’t before? Isn’t there something within us that reminds us that we are our brother and sister’s keeper, and isn’t that voice a bit louder these days?
This week I’ve celebrated life in a boat-load of places – at two graduations, with family and friends, shopping with a dear friend for a dress I’ll wear at my daughter’s wedding, connections made in my music classes and in yoga class and at mass and on walks and over meals and in hellos with our sweet next-door neighbors. There’s goodness and birds singing, even now. There’s death and dying and we must bear witness to it all. We can’t turn away, but also if we bend our ear to the ground, we can hear life happening right at the root, can’t we, friends?
God is making something new.
Raised Catholic rewind:
Raised Catholic episode 138: New Wineskins - transcript with link to episode
What I’m reading/listening to/recommending this week:
IG post from Fr. James Martin on a God who surprises us - read this!
IG post with spiritual art from Scott Erickson, on allowing death to reveal the song within
Song: The Kingdom of Jesus, by The Porter’s Gate, Jon Guerra, Sandra McCracken
Prayer:
God, you make all things new, even now. Lord, give us eyes to see, ears to hear, and the courage to participate with you in it all. In the name of Jesus and wrapped in the mantle of our Mother Mary, for us and our dear ones we pray, amen.