There is an anonymous prayer from Singapore with rich gardening imagery that fits well with where we are right now: Spring and the New Life of Easter!
God, stir the soil,
Run the plowshare deep,
Cut the furrows round and round,
Overturn the hard, dry ground,
Spare no strength, nor toil,
Even though I weep.
In the loose, fresh mangled earth
Sow new seed.
Free of withered vine and weed
Bring fair flowers to birth.
As we continue to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus, new life after death. Spring is reminding us of this beautiful rebirth. Everyday. As we look around in our souls and in the ground. New life is springing up. Some of us have begun to stir the soil. To sow new seed in our own gardens.
As I thought about Spring and new life, I came across this encounter in 1911 between a pastor, Albert W. Palmer and John Muir the naturalist somewhere in the Sierra Nevada mountain range.
One day … I said to him: "Mr. Muir, someone told me you did not approve of the word 'hike.' Is that so?" His blue eyes flashed, and with his Scotch accent he replied: "I don't like either the word or the thing. People ought to saunter in the mountains - not hike!
"Do you know the origin of that word 'saunter?' It's a beautiful word. Away back in the Middle Ages people used to go on pilgrimages to the Holy Land, and when people in the villages through which they passed asked where they were going, they would reply, "A la sainte terre,' 'To the Holy Land.' And so they became known as sainte-terre-ers or saunterers. Now these mountains are our Holy Land, and we ought to saunter through them reverently, not 'hike' through them." (by Albert W. Palmer from The Mountain Trail and Its Message (1911))
I love the idea that we are called to saunter, not hike through our holy lands. To pause, to take in the beauty, to take notice of what is around us.
John Muir says, “Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul alike.” The Yosemite (1912)
Our Creator shows us his glory everyday. New life that springs up from the seeds planted, all around us in nature. It is also true, that in the midst of what seems like death, new life springs fort in Springtime and it was certainly true for the disciples (and us!) on Easter…
For the disciples, after Jesus death. They lived in fear. They couldn’t saunter. They ran and hid.
On that first Easter night, Jesus breaks forth into their lives. He shows his wounds and talks about them freely; they are no longer a source of pain and bitter memory, but now heal and teach and bless: they heal Thomas’ troubled soul, riddled with the loss of faith; they restore Peter and the Eleven to hope and communion with Jesus; they reveal God’s peace still in their midst despite the horror of the past three days. What seemed like death has brought forth new life.
Our own wounds and scars can have a similar effect on our lives: they can teach us how fragile our lives are; they can reveal to us the love of God in the compassion and care of those who treated us; they can assure us of our ability to love by putting our bodies on the line for the protection and safety of others.
Easter neither denies the effects of Good Friday nor erases the wounds of crucifixion; Easter is God’s compassion moving us beyond the scars of crucifixion to healing and wholeness. Jesus says to Thomas and his brothers, Don’t be afraid of the nail marks and the scars and the fractured bones and the crushed spirit and the broken heart. Compassion, forgiveness, justice — no matter how clumsily offered — can heal and mend. In the light of unwavering hope, with the assurance of God’s unlimited grace, every scar on our own bodies — the marks of courageous sacrifice, hard-earned wisdom, and selfless kindness — is the realization of the promise of new life, or resurrected life, of Easter in our midst.
And maybe as Spring breaks forth, and creation seems to be alive again all around us even through the scars we have inflicted, the truth of Easter may lay at our feet if we are ready to break forth from fear to life. If we are ready to live into this gift of Easter for all of us.
At the end of his encounter with John Muir, Albert W. Palmer ends with these words, which I think will help us 100 years later, think about our Easter…
“John Muir lived up to his doctrine. He was usually the last man to reach camp. He never hurried. He stopped to get acquainted with individual trees along the way. He would hail people passing by and make them get down on hands and knees if necessary to see the beauty of some little bed of almost microscopic flowers…
Now, whether the derivation of saunter Muir gave me is scientific or fanciful, is there not in it another parable? There are people who "hike" through life. They measure life in terms of money and amusement; they rush along the trail of life feverishly seeking to make a dollar or gratify an appetite. How much better to "saunter" along this trail of life, to measure it in terms of beauty and love and friendship! How much finer to take time to know and understand the men and women along the way, to stop a while and let the beauty of the sunset possess the soul, to listen to what the trees are saying and the songs of the birds, and to gather the fragrant little flowers that bloom all along the trail of life for those who have eyes to see!
You can't do these things if you rush through life in a big red automobile at high speed; you can't know these things if you "hike" along the trail in a speed competition. These are the peculiar rewards of the one who has learned the secret of the saunterer!”
May we saunter through this Eater and see God’s gracious gifts to us. Amen.
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