Under Cover
Yesterday, a mystery under cover of earth. My hands deep in the black make work to scrape away all that is dead. Uproot decay. Clean house. A growing season is over. The bite of cold soil against my skin warns winter. Then, under brown leaves and rotting flesh of once mighty stalks, a mystery uncovered. There is life in the deep.
A coiled worm. A burrowing beetle. And a yes to the no of November. A shock of green pushes up between the rot. Two. Three. More. They are everywhere reaching for light. The dear, sweet sight of it. I might have missed it. Call it: Elixir to winter. A promise of spring. Life in the dark. Grace. Let follow: Wonder. Thanks. Eucharist. We taste and see.
Ann Voskamp writes in One Thousand Gifts, "I awake to the strange truth that all new life comes out of the dark places, and hasn't it always been?....All new life labors out of the very bowels of darkness" (96).
And this morning we sing:
3 There's not a plant or flower below
but makes your glories known,
and clouds arise and tempests blow
by order from your throne;
while all that borrows life from you
is ever in your care,
and everywhere that we can be,
you, God, are present there.
Everywhere that we can be. God in the dark. Not just present. With us. For us. Not just standing by until good things happen again. We do not serve a thumb-twiddling, toe-tapping God. The hard fact:
clouds arise and tempests blow
by order from your throne
I like the other, but this that must also be true I choke on.
And yet. A no becomes yes. The ugly is made beautiful. Transfiguration, Voskamp calls it. "So to see through the ugliness to beauty, won't I need to wear a lens? I'll need my own transfiguration to enter a kingdom where the Prince is born into a manure-smeared feed trough, where Holy God touches leper sores, breaks bread with cheats, where God wounds Himself through with nails on a cross and we wear the symbol as beauty" (99).
There is life in the deep. We are called to give thanks. I will spend a lifetime learning this.
A coiled worm. A burrowing beetle. And a yes to the no of November. A shock of green pushes up between the rot. Two. Three. More. They are everywhere reaching for light. The dear, sweet sight of it. I might have missed it. Call it: Elixir to winter. A promise of spring. Life in the dark. Grace. Let follow: Wonder. Thanks. Eucharist. We taste and see.
***
Last night I read:Ann Voskamp writes in One Thousand Gifts, "I awake to the strange truth that all new life comes out of the dark places, and hasn't it always been?....All new life labors out of the very bowels of darkness" (96).
And this morning we sing:
3 There's not a plant or flower below
but makes your glories known,
and clouds arise and tempests blow
by order from your throne;
while all that borrows life from you
is ever in your care,
and everywhere that we can be,
you, God, are present there.
Everywhere that we can be. God in the dark. Not just present. With us. For us. Not just standing by until good things happen again. We do not serve a thumb-twiddling, toe-tapping God. The hard fact:
clouds arise and tempests blow
by order from your throne
I like the other, but this that must also be true I choke on.
And yet. A no becomes yes. The ugly is made beautiful. Transfiguration, Voskamp calls it. "So to see through the ugliness to beauty, won't I need to wear a lens? I'll need my own transfiguration to enter a kingdom where the Prince is born into a manure-smeared feed trough, where Holy God touches leper sores, breaks bread with cheats, where God wounds Himself through with nails on a cross and we wear the symbol as beauty" (99).
There is life in the deep. We are called to give thanks. I will spend a lifetime learning this.