"I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?" Isaiah 43:19

It started with a recipe for a hearty root vegetable soup.Sometime in January I had found the perfect soup for a winter day so I went to the grocery store and purchased all the ingredients. I came home and put everything away and one thing led to another and I never got around to making the soup. The sweet potatoes were used as a quick dinner one evening. The acorn squash was baked with butter and orange juice. The carrots were eaten as a snack. The onions found their way into a salad or as topping for a sandwich.

But the rutabaga languished under the sink in the dark.Several days ago I came downstairs to see it sitting on the kitchen table, found by my husband as he rooted(sorry about that) around under the sink for something. The rutabaga, perhaps one of the least lovely vegetables, had sprouted beautiful, frilly deep green leaves. While resting in the dark, this peasant vegetable had become a lovely sight. Right now it is sitting in our kitchen window continuing to amaze us with its foliage.

When I think of rutabagas I often think of the memoirs I have read about WW II. It seems this vegetable often made up the base of many soups that kept prisoners alive. The vegetable, for me, holds a certain sadness and stark quality for that very reason. And yet, here it is right now bringing such pleasure.

So many times in our lives we are confronted with people or situations that seem to be without beauty, without much hope for being more than a knobby, hopeless eyesore. Yet, I believe, that within each person, within each difficult situation there is the potential to bring forth new life, something unseen and yet to be realized. Isn’t that the core message of the resurrection story?

In this season of Eastertide, those days which hold the joy of Easter, we are called to look for signs that, indeed, Life is at the center of all. And so we walk through the world with eyes wide open, watching for the presence of the Sacred in our midst…..even, perhaps especially, in the lowly rutabaga. And let the people sing, "Alleluia!"