The Leafy Branch of Winter
The days are surely coming, says the
Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and
the house of Judah. In those days and at that time I will cause a
righteous Branch to spring up for David; and he shall execute justice
and righteousness in the land. In those days Judah will be saved and
Jerusalem will live in safety. And this is the name by which it will be
called: “The Lord is our righteousness.” — Jeremiah 33:14-16
“My
primary strategy for living through the 21st century and beyond is not
to die,” Those are the words of Ray Kurzweil, the futurologist and
Google engineer who opted to have his body cryogenically preserved at
the Alcor Life Extension Foundation in Scottsdale, Arizona. The central
idea is simple: preserve the body in a pristine condition until medicine
develops a cure for whatever brought about death in the first place –
at which point one’s corpse is thawed and reanimated. Alcor charges
$200,000 for the full body and $80,000 for head-only preservation and
offers the option of clients taking out a life insurance policy that
will pay out to the company. Forget about the fact that as soon as a
frozen body is re-animated, there is likely to major damage that the
freezing was supposed to avoid like ruptured membranes and lost neural
connections. I wonder what happens to the soul? What happens to the
thinking, feeling, connecting, remembering part of a person who is
cryogenically preserved? Does the soul live suspended in some heavenly
realm, like taking a long vacation to the Bahamas, and then reluctantly
return? Do people who get re-animated become zombies? Maybe the
Seventh-Day Adventists are right — maybe the soul just goes to sleep,
lying dormant until the fullness of time.
Too bad freezing bodies can’t be more like planting seeds in the late Winter. I’m a New Englander, and we never think about planting before Memorial Day. Tomatoes grown indoors get too leggy. Early spring crops, like peas, do best in the warmed ground to begin. Winter is a time of stillness and relative inactivity. Yet beneath the surface of the ground, there is activity invisible to the human eye. Bulbs planted in the fall are dormant, but that dormancy is crucial to their coming to bloom the following spring. When the bulbs are planted, they immediately soak up all the moisture and nutrients from the soil that they can get and begin to put out shoots. When the deep freeze comes, their growth is halted. The coldness, the dormancy, is necessary if the bulb is to last more than one season. A period of rest allows the plant to grow in a more robust way in the longer term.
God works like that sometimes. Yes, in our tradition we have stories about God miraculously re-animating corpses, no corporate life insurance policy needed. My experience with God is less like that, and more like a dormant bulb waiting to come to life. We can experience times of relative quiet and inactivity where significant growth is happening beneath the surface. I remember going through a period of dryness for several years. When I meditated and prayed, I didn’t feel anything. I went through my routines, but the Spirit felt … I don’t know … not absent, but not present either; real but unavailable. I hit a low point where I felt defeated, helpless, and unhappy. I felt suspicious, closed off, and hardened. I felt like a victim to other people’s poor decisions. I was physically unhealthy. My coping mechanisms were not good. My spiritual life felt lifeless. I was dissatisfied with feeling dissatisfied. Looking back, I realize it was a time of preparation.
I now know that in when it felt like nothing was happening in my spiritual life, God was active in a way that was imperceptible. After the wintry latency ended, my prayer life shifted from less begging to more contemplation and imagination. I found motivation to reach new goals. I felt happier. I can’t quite say what God was doing during the time of quiet, but what followed was like the blossoming of a flower after dormancy. Signs of new life appeared, holding new surprises. Parts of my life are still growing, beckoning to flower with hope. And I’m now able to prune some of the old growth and deadwood that does not serve me anymore. I can let go of old ways and worn obligations. I can give energy to the commitments and covenants God invites me to now. The season of dormancy was necessary to re-focus my growing season.
Jeremiah alludes to these dormant promises in the life of his people. To people in the dormancy of exile, he says a time is coming when a promise will be fulfilled. A shoot will grow out of that which seemed dead. In the stark and barren winter of life, a green tendril will grow into a leafy branch. The promise is not dead, just dormant. God is still getting it ready, preparing and nourishing imperceptivity. When the promise comes, it will be a season for growth and newness. A season of justice and righteousness. A season of safety and salvation. Until then, until the fulness of time, it is a season of hope. Oh. Hope. Advent. A Savior. A baby. God born anew in human form. God with us. Emmanuel.
Perhaps you have felt absorbed in confusion and self-doubt for a season. Perhaps you feel alone, abandoned, and neglected by God and others. I don’t know when this season will break for you, but I do know that God is with us. Emmanuel, God is with us. Do not lose hope. When the promise comes, it will be a season for growth and newness.
Some say that hope is silent suffering through difficult times awaiting future righteousness. I think hope is here. We find hope in each other’s eyes, in a parent making lunch for a child, and in a medic’s night shift saving lives. Hope is in refugees seeking asylum and in neighbors taking care of each other. Hope is in the ordinary, mundane ways we keep going each day without giving in to cynicism. Hope is in the 4-week-old baby I held in my arms last week. Hope is the eyes of the person standing in the mirror before us every day. In hope, we press on and take care of each other, especially in the wintery seasons of our lives.
Hope is in a 2000-year-old story that we can’t stop telling. We can’t let it go, because it reminds us that there is greatness in the ordinary and newness from the dormant times of life. The light shines. The desert blooms. The righteous branch grows from a sleeping stump. The Divine comes to as a baby in a manager, and we keep remembering God understands what it means to come alive. God is with us. Emmanuel.
Too bad freezing bodies can’t be more like planting seeds in the late Winter. I’m a New Englander, and we never think about planting before Memorial Day. Tomatoes grown indoors get too leggy. Early spring crops, like peas, do best in the warmed ground to begin. Winter is a time of stillness and relative inactivity. Yet beneath the surface of the ground, there is activity invisible to the human eye. Bulbs planted in the fall are dormant, but that dormancy is crucial to their coming to bloom the following spring. When the bulbs are planted, they immediately soak up all the moisture and nutrients from the soil that they can get and begin to put out shoots. When the deep freeze comes, their growth is halted. The coldness, the dormancy, is necessary if the bulb is to last more than one season. A period of rest allows the plant to grow in a more robust way in the longer term.
God works like that sometimes. Yes, in our tradition we have stories about God miraculously re-animating corpses, no corporate life insurance policy needed. My experience with God is less like that, and more like a dormant bulb waiting to come to life. We can experience times of relative quiet and inactivity where significant growth is happening beneath the surface. I remember going through a period of dryness for several years. When I meditated and prayed, I didn’t feel anything. I went through my routines, but the Spirit felt … I don’t know … not absent, but not present either; real but unavailable. I hit a low point where I felt defeated, helpless, and unhappy. I felt suspicious, closed off, and hardened. I felt like a victim to other people’s poor decisions. I was physically unhealthy. My coping mechanisms were not good. My spiritual life felt lifeless. I was dissatisfied with feeling dissatisfied. Looking back, I realize it was a time of preparation.
I now know that in when it felt like nothing was happening in my spiritual life, God was active in a way that was imperceptible. After the wintry latency ended, my prayer life shifted from less begging to more contemplation and imagination. I found motivation to reach new goals. I felt happier. I can’t quite say what God was doing during the time of quiet, but what followed was like the blossoming of a flower after dormancy. Signs of new life appeared, holding new surprises. Parts of my life are still growing, beckoning to flower with hope. And I’m now able to prune some of the old growth and deadwood that does not serve me anymore. I can let go of old ways and worn obligations. I can give energy to the commitments and covenants God invites me to now. The season of dormancy was necessary to re-focus my growing season.
Jeremiah alludes to these dormant promises in the life of his people. To people in the dormancy of exile, he says a time is coming when a promise will be fulfilled. A shoot will grow out of that which seemed dead. In the stark and barren winter of life, a green tendril will grow into a leafy branch. The promise is not dead, just dormant. God is still getting it ready, preparing and nourishing imperceptivity. When the promise comes, it will be a season for growth and newness. A season of justice and righteousness. A season of safety and salvation. Until then, until the fulness of time, it is a season of hope. Oh. Hope. Advent. A Savior. A baby. God born anew in human form. God with us. Emmanuel.
Perhaps you have felt absorbed in confusion and self-doubt for a season. Perhaps you feel alone, abandoned, and neglected by God and others. I don’t know when this season will break for you, but I do know that God is with us. Emmanuel, God is with us. Do not lose hope. When the promise comes, it will be a season for growth and newness.
Some say that hope is silent suffering through difficult times awaiting future righteousness. I think hope is here. We find hope in each other’s eyes, in a parent making lunch for a child, and in a medic’s night shift saving lives. Hope is in refugees seeking asylum and in neighbors taking care of each other. Hope is in the ordinary, mundane ways we keep going each day without giving in to cynicism. Hope is in the 4-week-old baby I held in my arms last week. Hope is the eyes of the person standing in the mirror before us every day. In hope, we press on and take care of each other, especially in the wintery seasons of our lives.
Hope is in a 2000-year-old story that we can’t stop telling. We can’t let it go, because it reminds us that there is greatness in the ordinary and newness from the dormant times of life. The light shines. The desert blooms. The righteous branch grows from a sleeping stump. The Divine comes to as a baby in a manager, and we keep remembering God understands what it means to come alive. God is with us. Emmanuel.
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