Dear friends,
On a Sunday afternoon in November, about thirty people gathered in Edwards Hall and on Zoom for the first program in Open Spirit’s Multi-Faith Collaborative series, Liberating Hope: Spiritual Perspectives on Climate Change. The program, called Planting Seeds of Hope: A Gathering for Inspiration, featured beautiful slide shows created by Fran, a reading of the Earth Charter, and reflections from eight spiritual traditions. At the end of each of four sections, we invited participants to come forward to plant seeds of hope.
In the center of the circle, we had a small planter and multiple seed packets, each an herb used to make tea. As we planted them, we imagined that someday, perhaps by the time our series concludes, we will use these herbs to create a special Open Spirit tea blend. Maybe by then, we hoped, we will be able to sit around a table and drink tea together safely.
It was a beautiful ritual. As participants came forward, they blessed the seeds—a blessing in Pali (the Buddha’s original language), blessings from Baha’i and Christian and Muslim and Jewish traditions. However these plants grow, we know they are blessed; we know they will be a blessing.
Planting seeds is a powerful reminder of a paradoxical truth. We are in a time when urgent action is required. Our planet is in crisis. We need to act now—to change our consumption habits, our economic assumptions and our public policies. And if any of those changes are going to stick, we need to change our hearts. That it a slow, long-term process. It takes patience and trust—just as it takes patience and trust to wait for our seeds to grow into herbs we can use to make tea. We are called to act now, and we are called to patience and trust. The timing of our seed planting is good, for it coincides with a season of waiting and watching in the Christian calendar—Advent. The planter will sit on Fran’s and my dining room table, and we will be watching and waiting to see when the seeds sprout. We will keep an eye out to make sure the soil stays moist, and perhaps we will add a blessing to the ones that have already been made. Mostly, though, we will watch and wait. We will try to be patient. We will dare to trust that God is at work, even beneath the soil, bringing new life into being. When we see an herb sprout, we will rejoice that the promise is coming to fulfillment.
Waiting and watching are always part of life, part of the reality that we cannot make things happen on our own timeline and solely through our own efforts. During Advent, we honor waiting and watching as spiritual gifts, as opportunities to deepen our trust in one another and in God. During this particular Advent season, we are acutely aware of how our lives are shaped by forces beyond our control. We busily calculate when our children will be vaccinated and when most adults will have booster shots, hoping it will help us ascertain when we can finally sing Christmas carols in church. We try to predict trends, and we try to honor the variety of ways we each assess risk. We nourish the soil, we plant seeds, we keep an eye on the water—and we watch and wait.
What does it mean for you to claim watching and waiting as spiritual gifts rather than frustrating necessities? What does it mean for us as a congregation? I hope and pray our Advent season will be an opportunity to explore these questions. I hope and pray our Advent season will prepare us to rejoice in the promise coming to fulfillment—in the sprouting of seeds and in the birth of Jesus, God’s love in human form.
Peace,
Debbie