tagging along....on 'the whole creation groans'

Wow. Today, Ms. Minka eloquently offered a real world exegesis of something that has very much been on my mind lately...and had been entwining itself into some blog-like thoughts. So, thanks for the inspiration to join in/bring something within me to being!

On a miniature scale in God's creation, my local hummingbird has been occupying an ache in my heart this week. She seems to be missing. The scenario is a repeat of last year: magnificent nest-building and wonder-filled statue-sitting in it have been traded for an apparently barren sight (albeit from below): the nest seems to be unoccupied. I've studied (again, from below...) the edges of the nest for a sign of beaks distinguishing themselves from nesting materials. We did this last year for many, many days -- until we should have seen whole heads emerge -- totally in denial. Not knowing if she was chased off or her eggs napped by scrub jays, I suddenly thought how terrible it would be if she had been killed, leaving vulnerable hatched youngin's to die. Then I couldn't get out of my mind 'March of the Penguins', with Samuel Jackson's voice reminding us that, in killing a feeding-on-fish penguin mom, a leopard seal takes two lives -- hers and her hungry, anxiously awaiting, young chick. The whole Emperor Penguin wonder brings my mind to the catastrophe of global warming and how innocent creatures in our fallen world are gasping and dying. The whole creation groans.

On a slightly less somber note, but still evidence of the same, I've just been told by my office mate, who was raised on a farm, that the raw Jersey cow's milk I'm incorporating into my diet (I'm sure...more later...on this 'strange diet' issue) and can't seem to obtain because it's so popular around here (and the Holstein milk is NOT the same) comes from absolutely beautiful, sweet, long-eyelashed precious cows...whose milk I drink because their own calves are denied it. Ouch.

And, along with wincing a bit more when I kill a spider these days (except Black Widows), occurring to me too late that there is an alternative, I'm watching my garbage cans fill with trash and even recyclables, and picturing cesspool garbage dumps that will take eons to become clean and pure...if ever. Well, I constantly feel like an environmental screwup, even when I'm doing my best. I groan for wounded creation.

I wrestle with the hard reality that, no matter how much I want to and do try to do good, I cannot -- and oftentimes make it worse. No more Pollyanna thinking that if all the other big bad guys would stop mucking it up, the world would be fine. No more anger at the medical establishment for creating all kinds of drugs to cure something and actually making it worse. We all have a desire and longing for perfection...and the more we try, the more we are reminded that we can't make it happen and that, somehow, that might not the point of life.

Such things do indeed seem to have appropriately fallen, or at least come to the surface in a more pointed way, in Holy Week. Suffering, of mother, Son, humanity. I remember praying pointedly and persuasively...over and over (and still do) for things miraculous and ideal to redeem/stave off any and all suffering for my children. As if there should be less for me and mine than Mary and hers? But therein is the point. Jesus (and his mother) truly joins us in our humanity...aches with us...rejoices with us...sitting by our bedside in our cosmic illness and skipping rope with us when good triumphs, and reminding us of the ultimate triumphant end to the drama.

There is much that is good in all world religions and all other worthy efforts towards the healing of humanity. I could go on about that, and probably will at some point (or will quote Fr. John-Julian of Norwich). But, the uniqueness of Jesus' life, death, resurrection...and the marvelous, beyond comprehension way that intertwines and shares and magnificently redeems us (despite how mere humans try to screw even that up)...is where the hope for us all completely resides.

Thank you, Miz Minka. I'm now convinced that it is not my imagination that there seems to be something stirring our collective souls to involve ourselves, care for, grieve for, consider all of creation, even the smallest, most innocent and seemingly insignificant members of it. Perhaps Aslan is on the move.