When I open my eyes,
my God, on all that you have created
I have heaven already in my hands.

Serenely I gather in my lap
roses and lilies and all green things
while I praise your words.

My own works I ascribe entirely to you.
Gladness springs forth from sorrow,
And joy brings happiness.”
~ Hildegard of Bingen

Early yesterday evening I drove west of the Cities to our church’s retreat center for a gathering of three different groups from the community. Koinonia, as the center is named, is nestled in the woods on Lake Sylvia. I had been busy all day preparing for the retreat and had thrown my belongings and all I needed in the car, and in what has become my rushed pattern these days, headed west in freeway traffic. I inched along through St. Paul and over the Mississippi River into Minneapolis and finally made my way to the western suburbs. It felt somewhat a triumph.

As the freeway turned to a four lane highway, I began to relax and see the unfolding landscape around me. I had made this same trip in January past snow filled fields and frozen lakes dotted with ice fishing houses. The view was much different now. The soil of farm fields was turned and the rich, black dirt seemed to be itching to grow something, anything. The trees and bushes that lined the roads now sported the tiniest bits of yellow-green buds, that green that only happens in spring. Do you know it? The lakes now glistened with the evening sun, their waters free to move once again after months of being frozen in time, literally. Cows and horses moved lazily in the fields, periodically shaking their bodies against the ever warming air. Birds of one kind or another flew overhead and near the horizon, making their way to a new nest or a familiar home, stopping for a rest on this lake or that. It was like watching life be born before my very eyes! As I drove I felt all the tension and worries roll off my body. I relaxed into my driver’s seat and took in the show.

When I arrived at Koinonia I saw the birders were already out with binoculars. I later saw the amazingly long list of birds they had already spotted within only a few hours. As I unloaded my belongings into the room where I would sleep last night, I could hear the spring peepers singing wildly from the backwaters of the lake. I heard the far off cry of the loon, haunting and melancholy and yet a sure sign of life renewed, of spring’s true arrival. I walked to the lake to see the crystal, clear sheen that reflected the now setting sun. Overhead geese called to one another. More tension sloughed off my pinched skin.

When I went to bed last night, I opened a window so I could hear the peepers and the loons sing their nighttime lullaby. I drifted off to sleep held in the sounds of springtime bliss and slept like a baby. I was awakened by the same recurring melody with an additional descant added by other birds whose songs I do not recognize. It made no difference. Beauty need not always have a name.

Healing comes to us in many forms. This morning as I walked in the early morning dew of the woods, I knew that something had changed within me. All the stress I had been carrying, all my worries for the world, all I am powerless to change, had melted away. My breath was deeper, fuller. My heart was beating slower and, no doubt, my blood pressure was lower.

I had been healed by the Earth and its unfolding. I had been rocked to sleep by a reminder of the goodness of the world. I had been filled with a hope that is ours to grasp each time we reconnect with the rhythms and patterns of Creation. And like my Creator, I too can say, it is very, very good.

Have a blessed weekend……..