Moving In The Wind
On Tuesday, I got a little antsy at my computer screen, so I took a walk outside to let our beautiful campus tend my spirit. I sat in the shade overlooking the Memorial Garden and Camelback mountain, and the wind was persistent but relatively gentle.
I looked up and watched the palm trees swaying, the wind so much stronger way up above me than at ground level. It reminded me of an old song that starts, “buildings and bridges are made to bend in the wind…” and it’s true of trees and other parts of nature too, isn’t it? The pressure and movement makes the trees grow stronger. If they were perfectly rigid, they would fall because the wind would always win. But by developing the ability to adjust to the wind’s strength from every direction, the palm trees tend to be able to persevere.
It feels pertinent to us as followers of Jesus too, doesn’t it? Looking up, learning to bend, trusting the wind will make us stronger, deepening our roots so we can persevere too. If we stay rigid with only one way of thinking, acting, being, believing, some part of that is guaranteed to topple over when the big winds hit. But by finding the ways we can move with instead of against, we allow God – the wind – to guide our path, to help us get stronger and more rooted, but open to whatever may come along too.
In this divided time in our nation and world, it might be worth examining where you find yourself feeling rigid, and where you might need to learn to bend in the wind. While it’s not easy, it’s that self-examination that leads us to growth and leads to the deepening of our roots of faith because we ultimately learn that if we can bend, we won’t break. Other beliefs, other ways of being, other understandings of how the world is don’t threaten us, don’t risk our faith, are not in existence to make our lives harder. Rather, we’re all just finding the ways to keep learning to bend where the wind is pressing us, so we can grow into who that wind is helping us become. Our strength is in our flexibility.
I pray today that you feel a sense of that wind moving in your life, helping you to become all that God has designed for you. And I pray that as you see the wind moving in other peoples’ lives, you celebrate their becoming as well, entrusting them to God’s never-failing love.
Peace,
Mother Erika
The Rev. Canon Erika von Haaren
Interim Rector
Christ Church of the Ascension
