Good Soil

On Birthdays

Yesterday I celebrated my "will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I'm 64" birthday. I'm old now. My medical records regard me as "an elderly Caucasian female." Some days I do feel old--my body aches or my head hurts or my knee gives out while I'm exercising--but my spirit is infinitely young.

Perhaps "spirit" becomes more important when we get older. It is the part that doesn't age; it is the part that I believe will live forever, though in what form, I cannot say. It is difficult to speak of that which is transcendant; it is presumtuous to speak with any authority about the transcendant.

As a pastor, I am expected to speak of the transcendant, that which is beyond understanding. That is a task beyond me. All I can do is tell my story and the stories of others who have been to the "thin places," those places we enter where the air between earth and heaven becomes so thin that we know God's presence and exalt in it.

I've been watching the PBS series about our national parks, produced and directed by Ken Burns. The series says so much about creation as a means of transcending ordinary time to find the thin places. This summer we enjoyed a train trip to Glacier National Park and found ourselves in tears as we drove the Going-to-the-Sun Road. We were lifted above every care we face in our everday world, lifted--or so it seemed--to heaven.

In my sermon last week, I spoke of the word "salt" meaning "fertilizer," an idea I found in an article written by Alan Kreider. At the sermon's end I sang to my congregants the chorus called "Good Soil." As I sow seeds in the good soil with which God is recreating my heart, I am able to see the "good soil" in others; in that space we can allow ourselves to minister to one another in God's name.

As God creates good soil in me, sowing the seeds of love and compassion, I am re-birthed. So Happy Re-Birthday to all who travel the "Going-to-the-Sun Road," or whatever road leads us to our true selves. Namaste!