Monthly Archives: February 2016

There’s Still Time

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Winter Garden

It’s a beautiful day, with a light rain following last night’s storm.  The winter veggies and daffodils are happy, the fruit trees are happy, the birds, squirrels, and frogs are delighted.  Sunny days will return soon, and it looks like we’ll have a glorious spring after the first real winter in years.

I’m grateful.  I’m grateful for any weather, really, and for life itself.  I’m glad there’s still time—time for us as humans, even here in the United States, to come back to ourselves, to remember what it means to be human, dependent upon the Spirit for life, breath, and all things and interdependent with the rest of the natural world.  There’s still time for us to interrupt the insanity that has possessed us as a culture, that has led us to believe that current conditions are “normal,” even though all the warning (and warming) signs of economic, social, and environmental collapse are plain to anyone who has eyes to see.

How then shall we live?  I hope to play a small part in the hope for a “great turning,” for a transition to the other peaceful, just, and life-sustaining world that I know is possible.

It’s not time to give up.  It’s not time to simply provide hospice for the earth—that time could come, but it’s not now.  It’s not time to escape into our own private, personal worlds.  It’s time to awaken.  It will take many people from many different life experiences and ways of seeing the world, awakening 1) to what is at stake, 2) to what our responsibility is to the earth and the future, 3) what the alternatives are to the current path we are on, and 4) what we can do together about it.  Each of us can go deep within ourselves and cultivate courage in resisting the harm of the dominant institutions and systems of our day and to practice persistence in working for global transformation.

As I enjoy the rain and look toward spring, I know that God is alive and magic is afoot.  I am confident that there is still time for the change that needs to come.  I, for one, pray and act for “God’s kin-dom to come and God’s (loving) will to be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Frog Chorus on Ash Wednesday

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I got up early, starting my day out on the deck under the stars.  The frog chorus was loud, now that there’s been rain.  I know that frogs and other amphibians are most at risk of extinction due to climate change.  It feels so reassuring to hear them singing so heartily.  The frogs are still here.

Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent, is a day of prayer and fasting, a day to remember Jesus’ temptations in the wilderness, and my own.  A day to share with others in a service of ashes, to remember our mortality and to repent for the sin of the world.  Later, Guari and I will read T.S. Eliot’s poem “Ash Wednesday,” as we do every year.

This poem brilliantly portrays the dual Lenten focus on repentance and acceptance of our mortality. It expresses a sense of dust and ashes, of hopelessness, of powerlessness to change. These feelings resonate with many people facing the pain and challenges of the world today. But then, in the poem, surprisingly:

The lost heart quickens and rejoices

for the lost lilac and the lost sea voices

and the weak spirit quickens to rebel

for the bent goldenrod and the lost sea smell

quickens to recover the cry of quail

and the whirling plover.

The earth has the power to call us back to life, through the divine Spirit that moves through creation. In some mysterious way, the earth can provide us with an antidote to despair and can renew our spiritual connection with what is deepest within our souls. It is our context, our “ground of being,” through which the Spirit touches us, reminding us of what is real and important, who we are, and with whom we are connected.

Teach us to sit still,

even among these rocks,

our peace in His will.

And even among these rocks,

Sister, Mother, and spirit of the river, spirit of the sea

Suffer me not to be separated,

And let my cry come unto Thee.

Observing  Ash Wednesday opens my heart and gives solace to my soul.  The frog chorus calls me back to life.

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