From Darkness to Light

A few weeks ago, I was surveying my yard and pondering the ruins. Spring was coming early and I was not prepared. Weeds were starting to sprout, my asparagus bed was just dried ferns and spring weeds, the raspberry canes needed to be cut back, old tomato vines hung like gnarled skeletons on rotting sticks  and my winter garden had mostly bolted and. The day I decided to start pushing back the weeds and thorns was also a day when Elijah and Eero were over for a visit. Well, nothing to do but try to keep on eye on them and get at it.

How to work in a yard and keep two young wild boys safely corralled takes the Wisdom of Solomon or as I figured out—the magic of fire! A pyrotechnical bent seems to run deep in the DNA of our family. I suspected it would call to my grandsons; I could get some work done and keep them in check—multitask.  I just had to figure out how to keep them from getting burned. So I got my matches and set out for the asparagus bed, waving my lighter to call the boys back from whatever devilment they were plotting. With excitement I explained to them what a big fire we were going to make and they were engaged. So I lit the old ferns as my boys watched in fascination. As the fire caught and the wind began to blow, the fire spread and I grabbed a rake to keep the fire in the raised bed and when it was over to rake the charred stalks out of the bed. I noticed Eero run off when I started raking, I was a little disappointed. Elijah had long since lost interest but was safely in sight playing on an old go-cart near the mule barn.

A minute later I looked up to see Eero running as fast as he could back to where I was working. He was grinning and talking and he had a small rake in his hand. And rake he did. He had no idea what he was doing, he was just doing. In a few minutes I sat down on the edge of the bed and began to pull the spring weeds. With all the asparagus old dead ancestors from the year before cleared away so that new life would emerge, the spring weeds had to be pulled to give the new ferns a clean bed in which to experience light and life and eventually enhance my table. I noticed Eero sit down and began to pull weeds as well. For the next twenty minutes my two-year-old grandson, sat in the bed, hands deep in the soil and weeds, face smeared with perspiration and dirt, and cloths filthy helping me pull weeds. I asked him what he was doing and for the next twenty minutes he reminded me constantly, “Pulling weeds, Pa.”

My asparagus is now coming up, but my garden is not in yet. Before I see the glory of ripe tomatoes, the color of brilliant peppers or taste the wonder of grilled zucchini, I will have to go through the same process there. I will have to push back the weeds, turn the soil and spend hours of preparation to get the soil ready to receive the seed.

It always fascinates me how nature mirrors the great “act” of re-creation we see in the Bible. The greatest act human history has witnessed is the work of Jesus coming to earth to redeem his fallen creation. The world Jesus stepped into looked nothing like the garden paradise of Genesis. “East of Eden” the thorns and weeds had ravaged God’s good creation, selfish desire had replaced charity and even religion even when done with fervor tended to make even the most zealous sharp, curt and filled with self-interest. Jesus’ work of re-creation is mirrored in our own season of Lent and Easter. Jesus move to save us was a move first of all into darkness—the darkness of taking our form, laying aside the glory that was his right as creator; then the darkness of bearing a life of being misunderstood and mocked and finally killed. And then the ultimate darkness—being separated from the face of his Father whose love and embrace he had known from all eternity. The skies were blackened, women wept, good men fled at this darkness. All was lost. But in the deepest darkness, light came forth, new life—rebirth, recreation—resurrection!

My garden reminds me when it is the Lenten Season. Nature is awakening, the sun is pushing the darkness of winter away and the warm soil, in a mystery stirs…something in me stirs too, something that says to weed, to till, to tear out and to prepare. It is hard, it is dirty, it is messy, it’s not always fun. I’m sore till I get in ‘garden shape,’ I sometimes am overwhelmed at the work to be done; I sometimes contemplate getting a zero lot line house. But then I ponder what is coming, I ponder the joy I would miss in just a couple of months and I realize, ‘East of Eden’ this is the way things are—death before resurrection, darkness before light. All good things are like this and at any level of my existence if I am to be a participant in this “Recreation” Jesus started when he rose up out of the darkness, then this is reality.

As Lenten season is coming to a close, hopefully we have all weeded and torn out old habits of the soul and replaced them with new ones. Hopefully we will know more joy as we anticipate again the glory of Easter and what Jesus has done for us.

*                        *                        *                        *                        *

It’s not too late to get in the rhythm. At St. Patrick during Holy Week you need to be at Maundy Thursday Service. The service is amazing and through incredible music, scripture and a gradual darkening of light—you will really experience the shame of the cross and what Jesus went through to ransom you soul. On the Saturday before Easter we break our Lenten Fast with a huge feast of shrimp and crawfish, our children hunt Easter Eggs and we bask in the wonder of the cross. The climax of the season is Easter Sunday. We have two services that day and I hope you will bring a friend who needs to know that in the Darkness—Jesus came!