- Council Resumes today after Church
- Save the Date: A Spaghetti Supper is scheduled for October 18th at 5pm
- Next Death Cafes are September 27th, November 15th, and December 13th at 4pm (join us for an informal conversation around death and dying that may include curiosities, living well, and managing grief–we provide the sweetness with snacks and coffee)
- Sunday Discussion Group with Charlotte Sunday is on the last Sunday of each month after Church; in person and via Zoom–a fairly informal discussion around the themes of Sundays and life
- Bible Study with Seth is on the 1st and 3rd Sundays; in person and via Zoom
Watch the recording HERE. Recording posts after services are complete each Sunday (usually by noon).
The seasons are constantly shifting and changing. We like to stay in the seasons we like best, the ones that are easiest for us, but life doesn’t work according to our plans and desires. It works in a bigger and more wondrous and Mysterious Way.
And it is Good. Your favorite seasons are not my favorite seasons and my favorite seasons are not your favorite seasons. We have the wheel of the year, where some of us love winter and others summer, some of us love spring and others autumn. It’s beautiful how different we all are. It’s beautiful that there are people to love every season—we wouldn’t want any one season to feel neglected and unloved by all.
There are seasons of the year, seasons of life, seasons of days, and seasons beyond seasons. Sometimes the season is “good” and sometimes it’s “bad”. Sometimes it’s full of sadness and grief, other times full of happiness and playfulness. Some seasons are scary and some are excitingly wonderful. Some are busy and some are calm. Sometimes it’s the season of “not well” and sometimes it’s the season of “well”.
Things change. This is never so beautifully expressed than in the poem “Mutability” by Percy Bysshe Shelley (excerpt below):
We rest.—A dream has power to poison sleep;We rise.—One wandering thought pollutes the day;
We feel, conceive or reason, laugh or weep;
Embrace fond woe, or cast our cares away:
It is the same!—For, be it joy or sorrow,The path of its departure still is free:
Man’s yesterday may ne’er be like his morrow;
Nought may endure but mutability!
The seasons are constantly changing. In some ways our “little seasons” echo the seasons of the bigger world. We are like microcosms of the macrocosms. The bigger things are, the less we are capable of understanding its Mysteries. The Universe, and God-time, are things we cannot ever fully comprehend—although it is still worth striving for the knowledge and wisdom that comes from that which is (much) bigger than ourselves.
We are but little stardusts in the massiveness of the Universe.
Let’s move a little closer, to other macrocosms (compared to us) or other microcosms (compared to the Universe or God). The Earth itself. It’s mysteries are massive. It’s seasons might be seen in terms of centuries or millennia and yet…it changes. And yes, we can influence this massivity, but only collectively. We have such incredible power when we work collectively.
The world, different than Earth itself, is also massive and full and unknowable to us as individuals. We can learn about it. We can discover places and cultures, but we can never fully know it all. Again, that is not to say that it isn’t worth striving to know and understand this world better. In fact, knowing our bigger world better helps us to better understand our corner of this world and our place on the web of life and society. Knowing more can support us where we have real and impactful influence.
Nations are big and move at a different pace to that of our own individual lives. We like things to move at our pace. The great thing (and frustrating thing) about nations is that they work at a pace slower than us (as they should). It takes bigger influence to create changes in the pattern. We have to work collectively to make change at these bigger levels.
And it is HARD work, important work, and time consuming work. The work we are putting in now toward that collective work is something we will never fully see the end result of. We are but a part of something bigger.
This doesn’t mean that this work isn’t worth doing or absolutely vital for us all to do. Yes the hard, messy work this season is asking of us to do to make this world a better place. For us, and more importantly…for a time outside of “just us” in the macrocosms of our world and our Earth. Imagine if our ancestors said: let’s not bother, we won’t live to see it? Imagine if we believed: let’s not bother, we won’t live to see it? We may, in fact, be seeing some repercussions of collective neglect.
Collectively, we hold such incredible power.
At the same time, we are merely microcosms. We are little. Simply stardust and ash. We can feel so small and begin to think: why bother? We can feel so small that we think our words and our actions don’t matter. We can feel we don’t have to think about it too much or try to become who we want to be or actually work toward what we want to see, because we are just “so small”. And often, ironically, because we feel so “small”, we try to be louder and as BIG and present as possible. Anger is loud. Hate is loud. It makes us feel heard when it is easy to feel like nobody is listening to us. It makes us feel BIG when we feel…so small.
A seed is “so small” and is so potent (perhaps your mind is already turning to “the mustard seed”). Perhaps we, are not small and insignificant. Perhaps we, each and every one of us, is a seed full of potential.
Potential in a tiny, little packet.
Yes, a desperate dandelion growing in the crack of a sidewalk is special, but that lonely dandelion has a whole lot of work to do to make a difference and to spread that sunny, yellow flower in this world. But a field of dandelions? That’s collective work to bring sunshiny cheeriness to this world!
We are social creatures. Yes, we need our solitude and times of retreat, but human beings are social creatures by nature—and social media really and truly doesn’t count. We are meant to work together. Each of us is small, but each seed is meant to grow into our own kind of flower, with our own gifts for this world, within the collective garden. How can we help ourselves to grow into the fullness of growth we are meant to be?
Some of us grow tall. Some of us grow small. Some of us bloom bright. Some of us hide in the greenery. Some of us nourish the earth. Some of us bloom late. Some of us create deep roots. Some of us spread lots of seeds out there for others to follow. Some of us quietly bloom and spread where we are planted. There’s so much potential in each seed. So much potential in a garden.
Maybe we are the Garden. All of us. We must tend and cultivate and care for our Garden together. We may find it challenging at times, but diversity in the garden is what makes a garden sustainable and reciprocal into this world. A diverse garden brings more butterflies and birds. A diverse garden encourages healthy soil and healthy societies of critters. A garden full of the same species invites only the same society of bugs and birds and eventually stops thriving. And a garden full of herbicides and pesticides to keep some things out is just…poison.
The best kind of garden is a garden with beds that have room for every kind of seed to grow.
We may not be able to influence the Universe. We may have little influence over the Earth. We may have only a small imprint on the world. We may not be able to change our community as quickly as we might like.
We do have influence over ourselves. And we move at the pace of…ourselves. It’s the perfect pace to cultivate change that ripples. It’s the perfect place to begin to create change. Who do we want to be? What seeds do we want to spread?
Seeds of Love.
Seeds of Hope.
Seeds of Peace.
Seeds of Joy.
Seeds of Kindness.
Seeds of Compassion.
Seeds of Forgiveness.
Seeds of {blank].
(We are unique individuals after all; what is YOUR seed to plant in this world?)
Let us think differently in a world that is pulling us out of the season we are in and outward into places where we have little true influence. What might we, each of us, do right now, this week, to cultivate the Garden we all live in…beginning with ourselves? How might we begin deeply tending to becoming who we want to be and bring into this world? What are our first steps toward tending our own seedling?
Holy Grace, helps me to find the seed within that you need me to bring forth into this world in this time. Will it be love or hope? Will it be peace or joy? Will it be kindness or compassion? Will it be tenderness or forgiveness? What is it that I need to bring forth from within to do your work here and now?.
Grace, may you help me to remember what it is I must bring forth, because I may be very small in this world, but never small to you and I know that Love Must Always Win and that Love begins with me. Amen
Community Church of North Orange & Tully 