If you’ve noticed over the past few weeks, the above space has featured the phenomenal artwork of a local artist. Molly Costello is an artist based in Chicago who is “interested in cultivating more interdependent relationships both within our human communities, with the divine and with our more than human kin around us.” I struggled with which of her amazing illustrations to highlight this week because so many of them feature the beauty and fruitfulness of the earth. In the end, as you’ll discover, I couldn’t pick just one illustration. You’ll find a second image if you scroll down a bit. Together, these two illustrations serve as frames for this meditation that begins with lament and ends with hope.
Last week we considered the second day of creation that brought us the sky and the subsequent space to breath. But our breath wouldn’t be possible without the help of what was created the next day. This past Sunday we heard how God gathered the waters below into one place and how dry land emerged. But God went a step further and called forth plants, trees, and vegetation of all sorts to fill the dry land now called ‘Earth’.
Many millions of years later, one especially lush and verdant patch of that vegetation has come to be known as the ‘Lungs of the Earth.’ Covering 2.1 million square miles (an area roughly the size of Europe) the Amazon rainforest is known as the ‘Lungs of the Earth’ because its plants breathe in the carbon dioxide emissions produced by cars and power plants and breathe out 20% of the oxygen we need to breathe.
Last summer we watched as a record number of fires blazed through the Amazon searing large swaths of the Earth’s Lungs and creating a layer of smoke estimated to be 1.2 million square miles wide.
If you look carefully at the picture above, a phrase is written in the dirt. It says, “We are born and reborn with every fire.” The illustration itself is called Serotiny, which is a word I had to look up. According to Wikipedia, serotiny is “an ecological adaptation exhibited by some seed plants, in which seed release occurs in response to an environmental trigger, rather than spontaneously at seed maturation.” Basically this means, some plants only release their seeds when triggered by some crisis in the form of fire or the death of the parent plant or branch.
In the face of death or destruction, there’s a mechanism in some plants that causes them to release the promise and hope of new life. In the beginning God called all the plants into being and blessed them with fruitfulness. The ancient promise and directive to bear fruit and bring forth new life still holds true.
The second illustration I chose is called We the Seeds. Together, these two illustrations remind me that in times of crisis, in the face of death and destruction, we are the seeds of hope in the world. We have the ability to protect and promote life even when things feel heavy and dark. So in these dark and uncertain times, may we not hesitate to reach out to lean on and care for one another. May we find the strength to sow seeds that will bring forth new life. In our connection with the one true vine, may we be the seeds of hope, peace, and joy the world needs now more than ever.
In Love,
Pastor Annette