balancing change and constancy...

There is something infinitely healing
in the repeated refrains of nature –
the assurance that dawn comes after night,
and spring after the winter.

~ Rachel Carson, The Sense of Wonder ~

Spring did come. Actually summer has arrived in Vermont...and it is hot! And it is beautiful. We are involved in a continual changing process within ourselves and all around us. In just a matter of days or sometimes what feels like hours, plants have grown and flowers have bloomed. I was reminded recently that Rachel Carson, the scientist and writer who invigorated the environmental movement with her book Silent Spring, was a Unitarian Universalist. Yet another leader and activist in our midst! The UU Church in Chattanooga, Tennessee is on the path to becoming a Green Sanctuary and has been holding an annual Rachel Carson Memorial Dinner and interfaith gathering each year as part of this effort. Rev. Patricia Cahill, the local Episcopal priest who will be speaking at the event this year says that ‘As we cope with the environmental effects of dramatic climate change, people of faith need to become beacons of hope in the world. We can respond to the call of God’s spirit in actions that help to mend Creation; a good place to light that spark is through Rachel Carson’s writings especially Sense of Wonder.’

Every piece that we work on, no matter how small it seems, does matter. We are involved in an interconnected and intricate web of creation that needs our care and attention. Rachel Carson wrote that “it is a wholesome and necessary thing for us to turn again to the earth and in the contemplation of her beauties to know the sense of wonder and humility.” As our physical senses are heightened on these beautiful spring days, let us also allow our sense of both wonder and humility to emerge as we walk through the daily ritual of our days.