An Easter Day Walk in the Woods

Easter Day is synonymous with springtime. For many this day marks an official start to the spring season. Unless it occurs very early, Easter Day’s festive celebration is made even more cheery by the longer, sunnier days and warmer breezes. In the South, the unofficial dress code allows that women may begin to wear white on Easter Day. That was a big deal when I was a kid; I got to wear a new white sweater with the flowery pastel colored Easter dress my mother made for me with a new pair of white paten leather shoes and white socks with lace trim. The forsythia is in full bloom now, the fruit trees are just about to flower and there are little leaves appearing on the lilac bushes. And all we want now after the long, cold winter months is to be outside. It’s time now to clear the debris of last fall’s garden and begin preparing the soil for planting. The best examples of resurrection are given each spring. The grey forests begin to come alive with color at long last. The long dark night of winter is past and the vibrancy of a new day is upon us. The Easter story is tethered securely to a spring day.

This connection is so firmly rooted in my psyche that when I picture Matthew’s gospel account of the women coming to the tomb and finding it empty, in my mind’s eye I have included flowering bushes and lush green grass. When Jesus greets them on the road I see all around them flowering pink cherry and white pear trees. For me there is a necessary connection between the created world and the resurrection because I believe the work of the cross was not limited to just the work of atonement but also for the work of renewing the whole of creation. Isaiah reads, “For now I create a new heaven and a new earth!”

Thomas Berry, a priest in the Passionist order called himself a “geologian” for his love of study of the earth and its systems. He wrote that “gardening is an active participation in the deepest mysteries of the universe.” He went on to say, “We will recover our sense of wonder and our sense of the sacred only if we appreciate the universe beyond ourselves as a revelatory experience of that numinous presence when all things come into being. Indeed, the universe is the primary sacred reality. We become sacred by our participation in this more sublime dimension of the world about us.” 

A week ago my good friend Dee and I were hiking in the woods on a private trail that is part of her family’s land that they’ve had possession of for some 150 years. This particular trail follows along a run for four miles. Every few yards she would stop and tell me a story, or explain where we were by particular land marks. It was the most enchanted place I have ever been. She said that at the head of one of the springs that was pouring out of the side of hill next to the trail that there was a rock with an inscription that read: DUTCH IRISH 1858 that had been there her whole life. But a few years ago someone came and took it away. This was the playground of her childhood some 65 years ago, though much of what she remembered was gone; the grapevine swings and the forts they built with rocks and tree limbs. Many of the springs that once gushed with water that were now dried up. Gone too was the big pile of rocks that marked the road that went up to the quarry and waterfall. She was distressed by all the fallen timber and natural debris that had fallen into the run; evidence that no one is there to clear it away any longer. This was the original and only road through this mountain, she said, and added, but of course back then it was just for horses and wagons. 

She told me all about her Uncle Fred who owned the land, her dad’s brother. About a half mile into the trail a house appeared. I said I could believe there was a house here on the trail and she said, “Neither could Uncle Fred.” Many decades before a neighbor who did not know where the property line began or ended built his house on the run, but on Fred’s side of it. When the error was discovered the neighbor gave Fred 40 acres in trade and the matter was resolved. 

She said that Uncle Fred wasn’t much of churchgoer. But on account it was Easter and all, his wife, who was a Baptist, talked him into going with her to worship. The preacher went on and on about a man who was a notorious drinker and gambler and carouser and a womanizer. It was a long sermon and Uncle Fred was not a bit happy about being there. I had a vision of him walking out of the church and shaking himself off, like a dog who just got dipped in a flea bath. On the way home he said that the only good part of the service was that guy in the sermon. I think Uncle Fred and I would have gotten along. 

Uncle Fred spent his life preserving the land as a heritage for those who came after him. He’s long since gone to glory, and unfortunately, for all his good intentions while living, he didn’t make any provisions for the land after his death and so much of what was, is no more. His brother was convinced that big, old magnificent barn was full of snakes and burned it down. All that’s left now is the stone foundation. The land was divided up among the children and their children, some of whom sold it off or have let the homes and trailers that they’d put up go to rot and ruin. But who could of imagined, after all? Dee reflected. When you’re young you think that things will always be the way they are and you can’t imagine it any differently. 

Through all the changes and changing of hands the trail along the run remains untouched. In the summer the tops of the trees join together far overhead to create a canopy. The trout are still plentiful in the swirling deep waters of the run, and the crawfish and the orange newts too. Many of the springs still run year round, their openings crested with thick, vibrant green moss; the clear, clean water dripping two feet across, creating the appearance of a curtain of silver chains. Animal tracks covered the damp trail, evidence of bear and deer and foxes, groundhogs, and skunks, and porcupines and black squirrels. It was clear that some bigger animal had been running, its deep footprints were embedded in the mud. The forest was alive with the sounds of birds and little creatures scurrying away from us making the dried leaves look like popcorn. We understood without saying so that we were only guests in those woods and I felt an enormous sense of respect for each living thing there. Along the trail there were clusters of short little yellow flowers with scruffy brown stems. And the sight and sound of the cold quick running water across the mossy rocks was as peaceful as most anything I’ve ever known, as filled with the Holy Spirit as the grandest cathedral, the bending trail as straight a path to God as has ever been. Theologically speaking, the closeness we feel to God through nature is evidence of God’s self-communication. It is “God’s bestowal of grace upon creation,” says Judy Cannato.

The last 1700 years of Christianity has made the teachings of Jesus somewhat complicated. And the theological reflections around his death and resurrection and his life and the doctrines and dogmas about the resurrection fill volumes of books that fit under the heading of Christology. In a cursory search I found nine theories on the atonement; that should tell you a lot. The bottom line of each of them is a universal belief that all Christians share about God. And that is that God is love. That love is unabashedly revealed in the risen Lord. But it is also evident in every blade of grass and every star in the heavenly constellation. The whole of the created world is an outpouring of God’s love, a cosmic Christ that reaches far beyond our doctrinal limitations. Thomas Berry wrote, “We must feel that we are supported by that same power that brought the Earth into being, that power that spun the galaxies into space, that tilt the sun and brought the moon into its orbit.” 

On this most wonderful day in God’s created world let us now celebrate the Pascal feast surrounded by the flowers of remembrance of those who have gone before; with the sweet fragrance of Spring in the air; with our precious guest, the lamb, our four-legged brother/sister; with the four elements of creation: earth, air, fire and water - all our relations; with the sacred Word and festive song; with the spiritual food of the body and blood of Christ Jesus, and the assurance of the promise of the resurrection: that there is nothing in all of heaven or on earth that can separate us from the love of God.