Pollards

Thursday 4/16/20 6:43 AM

I enjoy the lightening sky of predawn. This morning the silhouettes of pollarded trees against the pink-orange sky drew my attention. I thought about the dead branches that had been removed along with the branches that were redundant, growing in the same direction as another, robbing its neighbor of sunlight and nutrients. The pollards stood nearly bare, stripped of twigs and leaves that clothed the bonelike branches that lay beneath, allowing new, more healthy growth to take their place. The severed branches had been put through a chipper, ground into mulch, and strewn in nearby flower beds to retard the growth of weeds and to provide the flowers and shrubs with needed nutrients.

My thoughts turned to the COVID-19 pandemic and the effect it has on me personally and on our society and world at large. Am I, are we, being stripped of the things in our lives that are dead or inhibit our healthy growth and development? Will this crisis allow us to see that those who clean, and serve, and care for the sick, and teach our children are the bones that hold our society together rather than the bankers, the business moguls, the politicians, the sports stars, and entertainers that receive all the accolades and attention?

It seems that people I meet on the sidewalk or in the store are more polite, more patient than they were before. I see parents playing games with children on their lawns, going for walks together, and greeting strangers who pass with a friendly hello. Will the nonessential things of our lives that are thrown into the chipper and turned to mulch through this crisis retard the evil that arises so easily in our lives and allow us to be more patient and polite? Will we set our selfish, personal agendas aside to provide the protection and nourishment our neighbors, the unappreciated bones of our society, need so they can grow and flourish? I pray for that outcome.

Wash Your Hands

Saturday 4/11/20 6:11 AM

While going on my walk this morning I reviewed my memory verses. When I recited James 4:6-10 I thought about the phrase “wash your hands, you sinners” because of the pandemic crisis we are currently weathering and I also reflected on other parts of the verses. Imagine my surprise when I opened my devotional book today and found the assigned reading to be James 4:1-10! Verses 6-10 read, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.”

I thought about our society and the pride we had in ourselves just a few weeks ago. The stock market was at an all-time high. Unemployment was at an all-time low. The economy was booming and everyone was happy. Then, in the matter of a few weeks, the stock market plummeted and lost thirty percent of its value, a record number of people became unemployed and are now unable to buy food or pay the rent, and the economy has stalled and is in recession. Laughter and frivolity have changed to mourning and gloom, not by choice but because of circumstances. I pray that, as a society, we can become humbler because of this crisis, that we will turn to God and recognize our need for him, and that God would draw many to himself who did not previously see any need for God in their lives.

The pandemic has given me a lot of extra time to contemplate my own need for God. It has resulted in a renewed relationship and a deeper intimacy with God. My psalm for the week includes Psalm 43:3, “Send me your light and your faithful care, let them lead me; let them bring me to your holy mountain, to the place where you dwell.” I feel that God has graciously cared for me and led me closer to him, helping me to recognize that he dwells within me.

Clearing Space

Friday 4/10/20 7:57 AM

This past year I have been on sabbatical and I’ve had a lot more flexibility in my schedule. Since I’ve pretty much recovered from my hip surgery I am now spending a couple of hours each morning doing physical exercise, including a lot of walking. I’ve purposely not listened to music or podcasts, so I walk in silence, listening for the voice of God and leaving my mind open to the prodding of the Holy Spirit. For the past few weeks we have been under stay at home orders due to the COVID-19 pandemic and I now have even more time of isolation and solitude. Since I have intentionally tried to seek after God I feel much more in tune with him and I have no fear, despite the troubling daily news about the spread of the pandemic and the rising death count. Lent is a time for reflection and this year the pandemic has allowed me to reflect at an unprecedented level.

Today I read an excerpt from Sarah Parsons book, A Clearing Season, that pretty well describes my experience during these past weeks. “If we picture all the obstructions between us and God as a wilderness, Lent presents us with time to clear and cultivate a part of that wilderness, to create an open space in it. In this newly opened space, we may live more freely and commune more closely with the divine. We can transform this wilderness and make it our home, our garden, a place that invites God in and asks God to stay.” It seems that this is what I did and, thankfully, God has taken up residence with me.

Disorientation and Reorientation

Wednesday 4/8/20 6:35 AM

Two or three times per week I review my memory verses as I go for my morning walk. I take my flash cards with me, look at the scripture verse on one side, and then recite the verse that is written out on the other side. I have been doing this now for about eight months so I can go through all the verses in about forty minutes. This morning I was having some difficulty recalling some of the verses. I seemed a little disoriented and I had a hard time focusing on the verses. There were two verses in particular that I couldn’t recall and eventually had to turn the card over so I could remember how it began. Those verses were Ephesians 4:2, “Be completely humble and gentle, be patient, bearing with one another in love.”, and Hosea 12:6 “But you must return to your God, maintain love and justice, and wait for your God always.”

After I had gone through the entire stack of cards I went back to review those two verses and I noticed the phrases “be patient” and “wait for your God always.” For the last couple of weeks we have been under a stay at home order. The only place I have gone is the grocery store a few times to buy fresh fruit and vegetables and yesterday I went to the doctor’s office for an appointment. Our entire society has ground to a halt as most people stay home with their family and it seems this will continue through the rest of April and into May. It is easy to get cabin fever and it is difficult to simply wait it out. This morning I think God wanted to remind me to be patient and to wait.

I laughed as I began typing Ephesians 4:2 in the previous paragraph. I was trying to type it from memory but it didn’t seem right when I read it. I went to the flash card and noticed that I had typed, “Be completely humble and gentle, bearing with one another in love.” Ironically, I had forgotten the two words “be patient.” I guess I am more disoriented than I thought or I still haven’t learned what God wanted to teach me.

In their book Companions in Christ, Rueben Job and Marjorie Thompson write about how Jesus had been firmly oriented in his relationship with God and had received divine affirmation at the time of his baptism and transfiguration. They continue with these words, “Surely the experience of temptation in the wilderness was one of disorientation and reorientation for Jesus. … Even more the agony of Gethsemane, the experience of betrayal and denial by his closest human companions, and the ultimate horror of feeling abandoned even by God reveal a depth of disorientation in Jesus’ life journey that defies our comprehension. Yet Jesus pioneered for us the ultimate reorientation to God’s loving purpose in the glory of his resurrection. God’s final word is life, not death; communion, not separation!” Perhaps the disorientation I experienced while trying to remember my verses is simply a symptom of a broader disorientation and confusion I have about what God is doing through the crisis of this pandemic. Perhaps God’s desire is that I become reoriented to him while patiently waiting for him to fulfill his purposes through it all. God wants communion with me, not separation, and he is giving me more time to commune with him. The question is: Will I use the time for that purpose?

Unwanted Grass

Wednesday 4/1/20 8:07 AM

Last week I dethatched my lawn. The power rake I used left about a six-inch wide swath of grass around the outer edge of my lawn that was not touched. I’ve spent the last few days going around that edge with a hand rake, removing the thatch, and taking out weeds and the unwanted rye and fescue grasses. The grasses and weeds that I want to remove are intertwined with the Bermuda grass so some of that is also removed in the process. The Bermuda has runners under the top layer of soil so it will return while the rye and fescue only reproduce using seeds. The lawn has been taken down to the dirt and last night I watered the lawn to settle the dust. Small patches of green Bermuda are poking their shoots through the soil and it won’t be too long and the whole lawn will be back, minus the weeds and unwanted grasses.

My life is a bit like the lawn. Over time there are bad habits or sins that creep in like weeds. Sometimes good habits can also arise, but with time they take over like the unwanted rye and fescue, and the important things of life get crowded out. My life, like my lawn, is a mixture of good and bad all mixed together.

The current pandemic has given me time to reassess what is important and what is unnecessary or unwanted. I am taking this opportunity to get rid of the weeds, rye, and fescue, of my life and make room for the Bermuda to thrive. There is a sense in which I feel that God is using the pandemic to force us as a society to reboot, to reassess what is important. I have the feeling our world has been stripped of all the glitz and glamour and we are forced to look at the bare dirt of our lives. I pray that the Bermuda runners in people’s lives, the important things, will surface so their lives can once again thrive in the way we were designed to thrive.