Nature offers lessons around every bend
There is an appointed time for everything, and a time for every affair under the heavens. A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to uproot the plant. — Ecclesiastes 3:1
It seems that every summer someone in our family tries to recapture the good times we shared the summer we drove with our closest friends across country from New Jersey to Virginia City, Mont., with four adults and 11 children. We surely could write a book, but with that many kids no one has had the time!
So, this summer it was my oldest son who decided that both families should get together for a huge softball competition/picnic.
I suppose it was inevitable that with the storm of e-mails that have passed between the 11 children, some now married with kids of their own, many memories of our original trip would rise to the surface.
One, in particular, will always stay with me.
When we finally arrived in Wyoming, we were very excited about finally being able to visit America’s first national park, Yellowstone. Amazingly, this park spans three states — Wyoming, Montana and Idaho — so we were expecting hours of magnificent scenery.
At one point, early in our drive, we were startled by bison than strolled into the road in front of our car. The excited chatter that followed soon turned to sadness and disappointment as we moved deeper into the forest to find only the charred remains of life.
Acres and acres of lush woodlands, aged trees and thick underbrush, once serving as home to innumerable wild life such as grizzly bears, wolves and elk, had been consumed by raging fires. In the stillness and desolation, the suffering of life once present in this park was almost palpable. We sat in silence, grieving the loss of God’s majestic work, and wondering if what we were seeing had been caused by arson.
Eventually, we pulled into a rest area to check our maps and came upon a forest ranger. We deluged him with questions about the forest fire and he patiently explained to us that the fire was actually the result of lightning, and while the death of the forest seemed a tragedy, it would actually bring about a better, healthier, forest — a new and glorious masterpiece of God.
The image of that devastated forest is one that has stayed with me throughout the years and comes to mind at the most unexpected times.
Like last week when I was picking seed pods from a beautiful flowering plant on the sand dunes and realized that before it could bear fruit after planting, the pod had to be destroyed so the seeds could come in contact with the earth; and again, when I was sitting in a restaurant with dear friends singing God Bless America while watching the sunset over the bay on one side and having an expansive view of the ocean from the other. As the horizon dimmed with the fading light I was reminded of a sign I had seen in a local store: “Seeing death as the end of life is like seeing the horizon as the end of the ocean.”
My father always taught me that there is no better wisdom teacher than life, and since good teachers know the value of reviewing and reinforcing the lesson, I guess I can expect many more opportunities to learn that the many “deaths” we experience in our lives offer the promise of many “resurrections.”
