Being Created Always, Always

This weekend I visited The Hermitage for an overnight retreat. (Side note- If you live in the northern Indiana/Michigan area, I highly recommend visiting. It's a wonderful space to get away and slow down.)

The meadow there, at this time of the year, is a-flame with goldenrod and burning bush trees. And the less vibrant, but equally miraculous, milkweed. The last time I walked through this meadow the air was filled with their tiny seeds, being released from their pods. I found a few pods clinging to their stems this weekend, the products of those dancing seeds, still soft and tightly closed. I pulled one off, intrigued by the prickly green cone and the sticky substance seeping from its stem, but especially by the tiny flat seeds enclosed inside, adorned with their soft white feathers. 

These seeds, held closely in their luminescent pod, are safe and warm, hidden, protected. Then, eventually, the pod opens, dying to itself, and releases its gifts to the world. The seeds become free, dancing through the air, their own praise to the Creator. Or, sometimes, I imagine, this release is more a fall into a deep, dark abyss. Or, perhaps, an endless floating with no direction or purpose, except simply being. Being all that they are with all that they have in that moment.

And finally there is a settling. Rest. The tiny seed is held once again by the soft, warm ground, fed from the waters of the deep. Then, continuing the cycle, the seed also dies to itself and gives life to new growth. This tiny being opens, and a new being comes forth, growing to bear another pod and hundreds more feathered seeds. The journey of life and death, opening and closing, holding and releasing, continues on and on and on.

As I walk through the familiar meadow trails and woods, I become even more aware of this holding and releasing of nature. Chipmunks scurry across branches, gathering their berries and nuts for winter. Dew drops be-jeweling the grasses, giving life and sustenance and beauty. A brilliant red leaf, released by its tree and gathered onto the ground. The tail feather of a hawk, either no longer needed or torn from its being.

And me. I am a part of this creation too, joining the cycle of birth and death and re-birth. What am I being invited to release, and what might I need to hold close for a while longer? Where might I be called to open, just a bit more, to allow room for new growth? What is dying in me? And what is coming to life? Or, what has been torn from me and needs healing so that new life can come? How am I being held, and sustained, and set free by the One who creates me? How am I being all that I am in this moment? 

The questions go on and on. Yet I am more and more convinced that the spiritual life is not really about doing this opening and releasing and dying and healing work ourselves. Just like the seeds are continually in this rhythm of birth and death at no effort from themselves, we too are a part of the eternal process of creating. We are created, but we are also being created, always, in each moment. This reminds me of one of my favorite poems by Thomas Aquinas-  

Would any seed take root if it had not believed

His promise, when God said,

"Dears, I will rain. I will help you. I will turn into

warmth and effulgence,

I will be the Mother I am

and let you draw from

My body

and rise, and

rise."

Or, as Catherine of Sienna writes, "Why don't the fields just rest, for I am willing to do everything to help them grow? Rest, my dears, in prayer." It is not our work to create, or even to die. God is the Creator. By taking on the work of God, we try to be God. Rather, it is our work to be willing and open, to be present to ourselves and the world around us, to attend to what God is creating in us. 

This, in the end, is more difficult than trying to do the work ourselves. It requires us to be vulnerable, and to look at places in ourselves and in the world that we'd rather not see. Even more challenging, we are invited to just let what we see be, accepting without judging, being present without fixing. To be present and aware and attentive sounds simple, almost like a cop-out. Yet we resist it constantly. All we really need to do is allow God within us to create us. Nothing more, nothing less.

May you find the space you need

to open to the Holy One within you,

to release and to hold,

to be held and to be freed,

to die and to be birthed again,

and to receive the fullness of grace

from the One who creates you

always, always.