Ecclesiastes 3:1–8 (New International Version)
There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under heaven:
a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain,
a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.
In many ways, the months since March 2020 have been a jumble of every season mentioned in this verse from Ecclesiastes. We’ve seen both the best and the worst of ourselves and our communities in this difficult time. On this #PanDeepening blog, which Prairiewoods has published daily since we joined the global lockdown of March of 2020, we’ve tried to offer new lenses through which to view the spiritual callings of unprecedented times and the fear, grief, hope, despair, insights on offer.
When we committed to a daily blog, we assumed that things—our world, our work, our weltanschauung—would be back to “normal” within a few months. Like others, we thought of the early months of the pandemic as “The Great Pause,” a brief opportunity to imagine something different for ourselves and our world. As the turmoil stretched out, as the numbers of those infected, then dying from Covid-19 rose, as we locally experienced the effects of the derecho, so too lengthened our commitment to continue offering a daily something that might lead to a moment of peace or self-awareness or spiritual deepening. This blog served that purpose, as we worked to bridge the distance between us brought about by our closed doors and our careful physical distancing.
The pandemic is by no means over. However, more than a year later, there are signs of new life as vaccinations become available, as infection numbers decrease, as the world begins to tentatively open up. Prairiewoods has moved to our first phase of reopening, taking tentative steps toward welcoming individuals back, then later in the spring and into the summer gradually (hopefully) welcoming groups and overnight guests. And as we enter into Holy Week and approach Easter, we are very much aware of the resurrection of hope.
In the Christian church, Easter ushers in a season of celebration, of new life. At Prairiewoods, as we look forward to new life in our hearts and spirits, we also look eagerly for new life in the prairie and woods, in the Green Prairie Garden and Garden of Eat’n, in Dry Creek and in the retention ponds. We listen for spring bird songs and the trilling song of tree frogs. To everything, there is a season—let us rejoice in that!
As we contemplate moving forward, we’d like to let you know that our staff has loved sharing this daily #PanDeepening blog with you. It has been an opportunity for our own deepening, as we hope it has been an aid for yours. Yet, we feel the season changing. We feel new life calling us to reallocate the significant energies required to produce the daily blog. Following Easter, we will begin to offer the blog on a weekly, rather than daily, basis. A new blog post will be available each Friday. We hope you’ll continue to follow our musings!
In the spirit of Easter and rejoicing, I offer in closing one of my favorite poems (one I know many of you love as well). May we all rejoice in the blessings of new life.
i thank You God for most this amazing
day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday; this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any—lifted from the no
of all nothing—human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)—e e cummings
—Jenifer Hanson, Prairiewoods director