Today in Los Angeles County, California, we are under still further restrictions and Stay-at-Home orders as the hospitals fill with new Covid-19 patients. No one should be surprised; we have been warned since last spring and throughout the summer and fall that this would be a difficult, frightening winter if we ignored the Pandemic and cautionary practices. Thanksgiving gatherings initiated a new surge upon the surge and we now face the upcoming holidays with new restrictions across the country, as we look with hope toward the vaccine. It was a mild sunny day here and I was able to take a short walk up the tree lined. The street was not still, but definitely quieter as things begin to slow down and people digest the news. It is a lovely street and I felt a new calm being back outside among those trees and landscape. I reflected on the week of prayer posts I wrote before Thanksgiving; a prelude to the predicted winter harshness with my hope that those prayers will seed your spiritual life with new prayers as we move through the winter months, wherever you may be.
As I walked, my eye caught some black rolling fruit along the sidewalk and street curb that I had never seen there before. And then I saw a flash of bright green where the fruit had smashed on concrete. I looked up and saw a huge tree, laden with ripe avocados! When had they arrived? I would have never identified the tree without it's fruit. The avocados were everywhere. And it hit me with renewed insight--how nature provides, not just provides, but provides in abundance with quiet generosity. While we struggled with our restrictions and traditions and resistances and fear and frustration, this magnificent tree was growing fruit, lining the sidewalk with it, spilling it into the streets, sending it rolling down the hill with it's own joy of growing and giving. Here is food. There are oranges and lemons and persimmons spilling in the backyards here. If you are facing barren trees, snow and ice, remember in the cycle of seasons, nature is growing underground and will spill out in Spring regardless of Covid-19. This is the root of Thanksgiving and the root of holidays and Holy Days, the recognition that Life does provide, generously. We have more than enough of what is needed to move through this time into a new year and renewed life. (Susan Nettleton)
“And still, after all this time, the sun never says to the earth,
"You owe Me."
Look what happen with a love like that, it lights the Whole Sky.”
(14th century Persian poet) Hafez