SojoMail - Resting at the altar of water and soil

Resting Where God’s Presence Unfolds Like The Fiddlehead Fern Avery Davis Lamb A few weeks ago, I received a call telling me that one of my closest friends from college had died. His death was a sudden, tragic one. It was the kind of news that dislodged other undigested griefs: Supreme Court rulings, climate disasters, and this damned pandemic whose most recent subvariant infected me, preventing me from seeing my friend laid to rest and isolating me from those who I need most. Despair blossomed in me; my fears of what my life and the lives of future generations could become seem to be coming true. I take my bouquet of despair to the only place big enough to embrace it: the body of Creation. I set it before the altar of the water and soil. I have my places: those close-by, thin places where God’s presence unfolds like the fiddlehead fern. In the morning I walk down with my hound dog, Sierra, to the stream behind our house. We take turns leading each other in exploration of growing things alongside the water. We are a good team, Sierra being more attracted to the smells of death, and I to the sights of life. Both are necessary and intermingled, in nature and in grief. READ THE FULL ARTICLE Forward Share

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