“And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.”
—Genesis 1:3
“The day will come when, after harnessing space, the winds, the tides, and gravitation, we shall harness for God the energies of love. And on that day, for the second time in the history of the world, we shall have discovered fire.”
—Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, S.J., “The Evolution of Chastity” in Toward the Future, 1936)
We’ve been commemorating Holy Week at Prairiewoods with a very real experience of dying and the hope of Resurrection. As many of you know, our beloved Tara, our kitchen manager, chef and aficionada of loving life, died suddenly this past week, leaving us heartbroken and bewildered. She was a person who lived for others. She was authentic, kind, generous and full of fire. And though she had experienced great heartache in her life and moments of profound darkness, she loved to bring the Light: light-heartedness, light humor and remembering to light a candle. Her smile alone—and that infectious chuckle—could light up the whole room. Most importantly, she knew and practiced the tenets of Resurrection life: faith, hope, love, forgiveness and radical hospitality. She knew that living life fully is all about living our life for and with others, and is in fact our primary vocation.
Why we came, why we are here is not just for and about ourselves, as the Poet Gerard Manley Hopkins reminds us. It’s not all about “myself it speaks and spells,” or “what I do is me.” It’s about the unquenchable fire of loving others as we love ourselves. It’s about tending the whole—all of this exquisitely beautiful creation—even when we are afraid for our human selves. It’s about harnessing the energies of love and reaching out to others when we are exhausted and sad. It’s about offering restorative Justice, and eco-Justice, even when we feel weary and overwhelmed, when it might be so much easier just to cut our losses and run. It’s about keeping Grace, “that keeps all goings graces.” It means “acting in God’s eyes what in God’s eyes we are, Christ. For Christ plays in ten thousand places.”
Today we celebrate Hope in the midst of global pandemic. And while we acknowledge profound communal sadness and loss, let’s also remember to tend the unquenchable Fire that flared forth from the depths of Love at the very first dawn: “Let there be light.”
As Kingfishers Catch Fire
by Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–1889)
As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell’s
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves — goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying Whát I dó is me: for that I came.
I say móre: the just man justices;
Keeps grace: thát keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God’s eye what in God’s eye he is —
Chríst — for Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men’s faces.
—Laura Weber, Prairiewoods associate-director and retreats coordinator