“I walked in the woods today, and it made me wonder why I walk anywhere else.”
Turning of Days p. 13
Life and death. A pre-spring walk to remind us of our place in this world: occupiers of a moment in time between coming to life like the sprouting of small sprigs of green and the violence of death.
That is the in-your-face lesson of nature that is also present in God’s word, but which may not be juxtaposed so starkly. And yet if we are not paying attention, we can easily miss the sprouting of spring and the blood on the trail and thus the lesson that there is a time to live and a time to die. And the lesson that death is violent. Even if there is no blood, there is still the separation of the soul from the body: a separation that will not be healed until the long winter of waiting is over at the final resurrection and the garden of buried bodies bursts forth in glorious light.
Lingering Over Leaves 