Ostara

Beneath the monotone gray skies of February, before the Cardinal’s first song or the muskrat emerges from its winter den, as I crunch along the snow-laden boardwalk of Siebenthaler Fen, there comes a moment when my nostrils suddenly flare with the pungent aroma of death. “Ahhh!” I exclaim – “The blooming of the skunk cabbage! The first hint of spring.”

With its pointed and twisted monk’s cowl of a flower (known as a spathe) nosing its way through the leaf litter, or even through snow or ice, this strange plant might seem an odd claimant to the honor of being the first harbinger spring. Undeterred by the ravages of winter, the skunk cabbage is thermogenic: it makes its own heat. The rising spathe can melt its way through inches of snow.

Thermogenesis is not its only trick, however. Within its hollow, tomb-like shell, the sturdy spathe shelters an even stranger squat, pale inflorescence (the spadix) covered with tiny flowers of both sexes. From the spadex emerges not just warmth but also the sour smell of rotting flesh. The skunk cabbage, you see, is a trickster. It lures unsuspecting blow flies, gnats or carrion beetles, who emerge in late winter and early spring to take advantage of the thawing food source of the winter’s dead. However, like Mary Magdalene on Easter Morning, they enter the tomb to find it empty. Off they go to visit a neighboring spathe, there to spread the good news that winter is ending and new life is preparing to emerge.

As the equinox passes, the skunk cabbage sprouts pale green foliage that will soon darken and sprawl into enormous wide leaves that will decorate the fen throughout the summer. Though toxic raw, numerous tribes of our indigenous elders found ways to process it, and they greatly prized it as a medicine plant, useful in treating a wide array of respiratory and neurological ailments. They commonly collected and dried its young green leaves around the time of the equinox and used the dried leaves in soups and teas.

And over and above it all the Earth, the stars, the moon and the sun dance their great never-ending dance of the seasons. Like the skunk cabbage, our roots run deep. The Great Life that weaves together our many small lives is defiant, enduring and strong.

The ancient Hebrew prophet Ezekiel lived during one of the driest and most desperate epochs of Hebrew history – the people had already been divided between two kingdoms, and the northern kingdom of Israel had fallen out of right relationship and was uprooted and exiled by the Assyrians. Meanwhile, the southern kingdom of Judah was rapidly marching down a similar path toward its own destruction. Babylon was expanding in power, and subjugated Judah, reducing it to a vassal kingdom. The Hebrews rebelled, but were put down twice, and most of the people were exiled to Babylon.

In chapter 37, 1 – 14, Ezekiel unfolds a story of being led by Spirit into a desolate valley filled with dry bones. Spirit asks him, “Son of man, can these bones yet live?” To which Ezekiel replies, “Oh Lord God, only you know that.” Then Spirit says to Ezekiel, “Speak in my name over these bones. Say to them, ‘O dry bones, hear the Word of the Lord.’ ⁵ This is what the Lord God says to these bones: ‘I will make breath come into you, and you will come to life. ⁶ I will join you together, make flesh grow back on you, cover you with skin, and put breath in you to make you come to life. Then you will know that I am the Lord.’”

A couple points from this story of revitalization particularly leap out for me. One is that Ezekiel speaks in faith without knowing the results ahead of time – “Only you know that,” he says to God. Second, Spirit does not simply say, “Stand back Ezekiel! watch this!” Yes, the revivifying power ultimately emerges from Spirit, but Ezekiel plays a role, too – Spirit gives him the words and endows them with the power.  Finally, the resurrection of the bones occurs in two phases – reconstituting the physical body is not enough. The breath must also (and separately) be called into the body before it can live – there must literally be inspiration.

As a Quaker, the last statement of verse 10, “They formed a large army” evokes George Fox’s vision from Pendle Hill in which he “saw a great people to be gathered.” Like Ezekiel and the ancient Israelites, Quakerism, too, was born from a valley of dry bones—the vicious societal fragmentation and myriad cruelties and de-humanizations of the English Civil War. As we in QEW call Quakers around the world to the work of restoration, revitalization, and right relationship through the Quaker Earth campaign, we might do well to remember the example of our own history.

Margaret Fell, the organizational genius behind many Quaker practices, was to a large extent motivated by recognizing the need of Quakers to nurture one another through a time of intense persecution. Quaker Meetings were originally organized as resiliency hubs. One of my earliest Quaker ancestors, a humble shoemaker named Paul Pennington, was a beneficiary of Fell’s organizing – he was one of 43 Quakers listed by Fell’s daughter, Sarah, who were seized from their homes or work places and marched off to  imprisonment in Lancaster Castle in 1660.

And walking I have done in plenty over these last few years. Though I was always an outdoors person, I found that getting outdoors in virtually any weather and at every time of year was now a daily necessity for me. I found that I was looking upon all things as though Spirit had made them new for my eyes just that morning. Or perhaps Spirit had simply remade me to see through new eyes, as my 1-year old grandson now sees the world – as a rolling symphony of the miraculous.

The day may come when I will walk among the stars, but for now the gift of walking this beautiful, Blue-Green Earth is miracle enough. And walking I have done in plenty over these last few years. Though I was always an outdoors person, I found that getting outdoors in virtually any weather and at every time of year was now a daily necessity for me. I found that I was looking upon all things as though Spirit had made them new for my eyes just that morning. Or perhaps Spirit had simply remade me to see through new eyes, as my 1-year old grandson now sees the world – as a rolling symphony of the miraculous.

As a culture and a society it is easy to feel that we are all now trapped in the valley of dry bones. It is easy, and even more reasonable to think that no reserve of vitality exists to lift those bones and bring them to life again and make them dance. With my blood pressure plummeting and my kidneys failing, overwhelmed by the cascade of blood platelet death, it would have been easy for the emergency room staff to write me off that day six years ago– “This one’s already gone. No spirit can raise these bones.”

But that is not what happened. Like Ezekiel, like the humble skunk cabbage with its roots burrowed deep into the rich soil of Spirit, they did not pause to worry themselves about whether or not their efforts on my behalf would be effective. They stuck to protocol. They ran tests; they pumped my veins full of re-hydrating solution and antibiotic to fight the infection. At the worst of it, writhing from the pain of a cleaver buried and twisting between my shoulder blades—I did not know at the time that I was having an infection-induced heart attack—a nurse leaned in and managed to claim my attention with that magical nurse’s voice that somehow blends urgency, calm and compassion all at once. “Can you describe the pain?” she asked. But all I could think was that I could no longer see her face. I looked about the emergency room and in mounting desperation realized that I could not make out anyone’s face, until my eyes turned to my wife, Heidi, the only face that I had known when I came in. They had seen to my body, but now was the time for the calling of the winds to give me breath. I quote from the thank you letter I wrote a week later to the Soin Sepsis Response team:

People have asked me in the days since whether I saw the proverbial “light at the end of the tunnel”?

I did not.

It was not yet my time to look that way.  It was toward your lights that I turned, and it was your lights that guided me through the valley of the shadow of death and back to my life and my family.

I can never thank you enough.                       

Friends, this is what we owe one another and all our neighbors, human and other-than-human. This is what we owe our beautiful Earth as we navigate these dark days of winter. Like the skunk cabbage we must draw from deep roots to make our own heat, and melt through the blanketing snows of winter.  We owe one another and our world our faith, our courage, our kindness, our Light.

Six months after that day of rebirthing, I joined the Quaker Earthcare Witness steering committee for my first gathering at Pendle Hill. My work with Mini-Grants and Spiritual Nurturance has been a precious opportunity to share in a community of Light ever since. Like the fen and every other ecosystem I know, ours is a gift economy. Our gifts of mutuality and Love do not diminish but rather expand as we share them.

Our task is simple but not easy: Listen deeply to Spirit. What words or actions does Spirit give you to bring new Life to this valley of dry bones?

I close by offering the poem I wrote for the Soin Sepsis team six years ago. I hope it speaks to our condition today as we seek to respond to the global systemic shock that is enveloping us.

There’s a light that glows among us, in every human heart,

 the light that lit the Cosmos at the Universe’s start.

It ignites the mountain crest at dawn,

and enflames the sunset sea.

It illumines every flower,

And it shines through you and me.

It shines in every Christian, every Muslim, every Jew;

It shines in Hindus, Buddhists, and in secularists, too.

The light gleams in every race and gender;

It shines through rich and poor.

The light also glows within you,

for I have seen you through and through.

The light’s name is love-undying.

All it touches, it makes new.

Last week as I lay striving, you shone your light for me.

This week with joy of living, I turn it back to thee.

Take it. Live it. Shine it. Love it.

Spread it widely through the healing work you do.

To the pained, the bleeding, the broken,

and to those who pass beyond

To the One Great Light of Healing

that calls all of us anon.

– Al McGrew