As I sit here, writing this, in my office – mask off, puppy at my feet, window shades open to see the sunshine outside, I’m keenly aware of where I was sitting two years ago today.
At home, anxious. Watching the news more than was helpful – but at a loss for what else to do. It was a Saturday, and I was contemplating the first Sunday in my ministry life when I wouldn’t be at church not because of weather or travel plans or unforeseen illness, but because of a pandemic.
Over the last forty-eight hours previously, I had met with Pete and Joel over pancakes (little did I know, the last meal I’d eat inside a restaurant in over a year) to discuss a temporary closure to WCC because of COVID. The next morning, I met a friend at Jewel Osco to panic shop for vegetables, baking materials, comfort food, and – yes- wine before locking down in my apartment for…two weeks? A month?
I think it’s helpful to look back because sometimes time feels so strange and fluid that it’s hard to know how I got here. Here, where I’m finally feeling safe and brave enough to venture out, to eat indoors, to travel, to entertain, to take more risks and bigger ones because maybe, just maybe, it’ll be ok after all.
Here, where I could not have anticipated being two years ago. Or six months ago.
The truth is, it took a lot to get here. A lot of care to protect myself and others. A lot of patience, when it felt like forever to get back to “normal.” A lot of thought and prayer about what normal should actually look like; what I wanted to get back to and what I was glad to let go of. A lot of time.
I was reminded of all this, today, when I read our prompt in Backyard Pilgrim. It talks about gardening; specifically, about the long, slow work of it. Matt writes, “There is something about gardening that grounds us in the basics of being human: the time it takes, the relationships that grow, the fruit that finally comes.”
And he asks: “What can a garden teach you about your relationship with God, your neighbor, and yourself?”
We’re in that time of year, finally, when little shoots of green are starting to peek out of the ground. In the midst of brown, dead-looking grass and old leaves and dirt, a few tendrils of early flowers are appearing. I am beginning to hope again.
I am remembering that life comes after death. That spring comes after winter. That the snow and the cold allowed the land to rest, and it is coming back to flower and bloom again.
Just as we are coming back, in many ways, again.
But it is long, slow work. It has taken two years, and it will take yet more time.
Gardeners know that kind of time intimately, and I am learning it now too.
And still…I am starting to see the fruits of that long time, those two hard years; the knowledge of what God has been doing in the midst of great pain and suffering:
the gift of people coming back together genuinely grateful for companionship and community, the recognition that all of life is precious, the awareness of how interconnected we are and how much we need each other – all of that is deeply good. All of it is deeply God.
It takes the time it takes. But be reassured, that God is working all the while.
God’s peace be with you today.
-Pastor Jen
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