May Day and Cedar Trees

(this meditation was written by asgr for an evening meal gathering of women in our seminary community)

Hear the poetry of Harris Loewen........

O God great womb of wondrous love,
your spirit moving on the deep did wake the world within yourself
a pulsing lighted world from sleep

O Hearth O heartbeat of the whole
your dark light dance began the times, the days and seasons, seconds, years
the ages rhythms and the rhymes.

O fire, O firmament and sea
your seething ferment’s energy called forth a whirling waltz of life
each plant and creature and its seed.

Sisters. It is May day. It is a day of ancient memory. A creation day of dancing around May Poles and finding love. A day of joy. A day to celebrate the fertile garden that is the earth. The fertile soil that we each hold within us. A day to claim God’s holy fertility as the creator of all that is.

May Day falls midway between the Spring Equinox and the Summer Solstice. It falls midway in the year, across from the midpoint of the vernal Equinox and winter solstice, which marks the beginning of the dormant and shadowed time of year, when things go quiet and deep.....in preparation. May day, in its Mid-ness..... lifts high the banner of the sun, throwing off the veil of winter........urging us to move forward and into the fresh greening of the world.

How easy it is to revel in the planting, the sowing, the dreaming of fresh vegetables and fruits that are to come. How easy it is today, to think of culminations....culminations of classes, ministry settings, papers, first years, other years...... propelling us into time that is yet to come but is so near ripeness. The sap, deep in the trees has flowed its sweet treasures to entice us for months to come. The peonies tease us with their buds waiting to burst....needing yet another month of preparation. The soil hits our nostrils with the earthy scent of compost, dew, rich dirt and hope. A sight of anticipation for our eyes.

You.

Each you that sits in this circle.

Each one who sits here in exhaustion or doneness or still need to do-ness........you are precious and prized like first fruits of the season. You are God’s.

The book of the prophet Ezekiel brings us an image of creating abundance and Godly gardening.......an image that is purposefully stated in the face of those who have chosen to follow not God, but to make subcontracts with human authorities, selling their people, selling their heritage, selling their promise. Trading life for death. But lets put aside the actual context of this image. For the image itself is bursting with seasonal awakenings...greening of God’s calling, midway-ness of what has been and what is to be. Hear now from the prophet, the images from God.

God, our creator, says, “I personally will take a shoot from the top of the towering cedar, a cutting from the crown of the tree, and plant it on a high and towering mountain on the high mountain of Israel. It will grow putting out branches and fruit - a majestic cedar. Birds of every sort and kind will live under it. They’ll build nests in the shade of its branches. All the trees of the field will recognize that I, God, made the great tree small, and the small tree great, made the green tree turn dry and the dry tree sprout green branches. I, God said it - and I did it.”

We are the birds of every sort and kind, living within the branches of the majestic cedar. As the many hued ribbons of the May Pole, our sacred gifts and talents flow and invite others into God’s dance of creative life. Our faith is the nest that holds our soul’s home, safe in the cool shade of the tree that God brings forth from the solid mountainscape.

It is God who calls. God who transplants. God who sows with fertile faithfulness. It is the creator who restores the cold wintry season to a green landscape of bloom and abundance. It is the Creator who determines what lowly tree will prevail, and what stately tree will be brought low, what will be green and what will be dry.


Oh, you women of Creative, Fertile Faith. Oh we women of God. We are in the mid point of being transplanted, nourished. Always midway between this or that....moving with rhythms that we establish, and with those that we join. Be strong in your season of relationships with sisters and brothers that surround you to receive learning from you or to bring support to you. Be strong in your season of relationship with the One who assumes a majestic landscape of your ministry. ...the many sorts and kinds of ministries that pulsate with Holy Life. Lift your joyful spirits unto the Holy One, who is creating with you.