Notes for the Week Second Sunday after Pentecost June 14 2020
Dear friends,
I’m not sure what compelled me to put my rose alongside the other assorted flowers placed in the ageing chain link bridge above the St. John’s railroad cut. God knows, I am missing close camaraderie, missing sharing worship time with the faithful, confused about the outcomes of emergent Phases 1, 2 and 3. I’m confused about the before, during and after of protests in the streets, and how easy it seems for hatred to continue to exist when so many people simply want to get along.
As one who, like many of us, have seen my share of suffering due to war, civil upheaval, despicable acts, political assassinations, out and out murder of mind, body and spirit, unspeakable animal cruelty, have seen finger pointing, judgement and accusation of guilt in the face of innocence, and the other way around. We have all experienced misunderstanding, miscommunication, misplaced belief and eventually, there comes a time when one just has to place a rose in a chain link fence to express something that’s too hard to put into words.
Maybe that’s why people do it. Lay flowers at the tombs of what might have been beautiful but somehow turned ugly. Be the tombs of the fallen be ever so simple, or be they mighty monuments, they express a common human desire to bring some hope into what seems hopeless. Some possibility into the seemingly impossible. Some calm into the chaos and balm for wounded hearts. Some expression of universal human compassion for all humankind, regardless of mistakes that have been made and will be made again. People are just like roses or any other part of God’s creation. Well-tended, we flourish; neglected, ill-treated or counted as expendable, it’s hard not to simply perish.
But God didn’t design any part of Creation to just give up and die when the going gets tough. Roses will keep on blooming in the middle of a long-forgotten garden, sending out a message that they still offer grace, even amid a sea of weeds. All life will find ways to grow between the hard rocks within which it finds itself, determined to hold on, finding a way to flourish, no matter what. Even if we don’t always quite understand why, how, or in what way we are to continue growing, no matter our age, circumstances or heritage, we just know we must. To stop growing, to stop working toward understanding, to stop examination of oneself and one’s actions, is a freeway toward discord rather than discovery. To put one’s head in the sand in order to ignore one’s own contribution to disorder, or to not realize one’s need to mend what is broken, is to sacrifice gratitude for the creation of one’s own life itself, along with all its possibilities to bring honor to the One who created it.
Perhaps that inner knowing is why we put our flowers out in the public places. They are a testament to all that has been sacrificed, all that has been longed for, all the possibility that seems discarded, but most of all they are a testament to the hope that we will continue to seek the beautiful and that we will continue to endure, will keep on keeping on in faith and hope. We do not run away from what seems undone and impossible to overcome, we look at it all to see where it is we are called to find possibilities for rebuilding new possibilities.
It is all Jesus asks of us. To express love of God and neighbor in whatever way we can, even if it is merely threading a rose on a chain link fence. To be open to growth in our understanding of ourselves. To be open to growth in our understanding of others. Above all, to understand that God continues to create, with us or without us. It is simply ours to notice and participate.
We journey together,
Mother Esme+
“…. we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand……………. knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.” (Romans 5:1-5)
