Table Talk - Faith, Earth, Poetry

Dear Golden Bears, Parents, and Friends,

April is a month for much rejoicing. The Easter season has arrived. The earth is springing back into life. It’s National Poetry Month. Faith, earth, and poetry—these share more in common than simply occurring in April.

While most religions have specific pronouns for describing God—Yahweh, Father-Son-Holy Spirit, Allah, Brahma, etc.—almost every faith tradition believes that God is the Creator of the natural world. I find it helpful to think of God as being the Poet of the universe. Creation is God’s ongoing poem. Each and every part of creation is a different stanza, line, word, or rhyme in that poem.

Made in God’s image, the poem reflects the Poet. From the galaxies on the furthest stretches of outer space, to each tiny blade of grass beneath our feet, as parts of God’s poem each part of creation contains beauty, goodness, and truth.

In chapel, I shared a story about two maples trees that stood in my backyard during my childhood. Throughout my boyhood, I developed a close relationship with the trees. This relationship was so unique that you could think of it as a deep friendship. The maple trees were the perfect listeners who taught me that God’s first language is silence. They were a sacred place I could always go to feel the presence of God. I played in the colorful leaves they shed each fall. I admired the glassy beauty of their frozen limbs each winter. I relaxed beneath them on the shady grass and watched them bloom each the spring. I imagined myself playing with angels of light as I climbed their branches each summer.

My friendship with those two maple trees taught me how to befriend other parts of God’s creation. In time, I would come to count the following among my best of friends: the purple sunset, the quiet pond in back of my house, the falling snow, and a cliff in the East Rock Park of New Haven that I often rested at during my afternoon run.

I’m aware that it may sound odd to form friendships with parts of the earth; but I suspect that most individuals who have spent a healthy amount of time outside also have friendships with specific places and parts of God’s poem. I’d love to hear the stories of trees, mountainsides, beaches, flowers, or any part of earth that has helped reveal the beauty, goodness, and truth of God.

This April, I pray you set aside the time to go outdoors, pause, and, breathing deeply, quietly give thanks for the beautiful, fragile poem we call earth.

With Love and Prayers,

Chaplain Timothy

Let us pray: 

Creator of all life, Poet of the universe, 

we give you thanks for the sacred earth; 

for the stars and galaxies that shine in outer space; 

for the deep oceans and aquatic life. 

May we love the earth and help her to grow. 

May we love the waters and protect their purity. 

May we love the skies and heavens and honor their infinity. 

Through your many names we pray. 

Amen.

Table Talk - Symbols of God

Dear Lower School Family and Friends,

“Why does Easter—the celebration of God’s peace over violence, hope over despair, and life over death —take place at the start of spring and not in the dead of winter?”

I asked this question last week in chapel and have been repeating it to my classes over the past few days.

Taking place just after the vernal equinox, Easter, like Passover, is a holy day that celebrates and symbolizes a time of transition from conditions of death to the promise of the new life. The dead of winter becomes the promise of spring. Barren trees begin to bloom. Muted shades of brownish grey become vibrant and verdant colors. This is why Easter takes place in the spring and has come to be associated with new life—be it fresh flowers, bunnies and chicks, or floral dresses and pastel shirts.

In the early Christian tradition, it was a common practice to search for God’s presence in the surrounding environment and culture. This is how lambs, butterflies, peacocks, phoenixes, pelicans, and dolphins came to be symbols for Jesus as the Easter stories recall him (these symbols are explained below).

All journeys of faith are based on the ongoing search for God’s presence in our midst. It’s important to understand the symbols and practices that people in the past have used to connect to God. But it’s even more important to ask where we can encounter God in the symbols and practices of today. Among the most significant points of Jesus’ message was that we readily encounter God in our interactions of love, compassion, and celebration.

Last month, in a loving act of compassion and celebration, our students took part in the second annual Lent Madness Fundraiser and raised over $6,800 to aid the underprivileged children who will attend HIES Horizons summer enrichment program. News about this generosity spread and I had an unexpected exchange with someone from New York who contacted me commending our Lower Schoolers’ actions and attitude as being a clear example of God’s presence in the world. This person was not the only one to notice that something significant and holy took place here at HIES. The website of the local NBC station ran this article last week, and so did a few other online publications.

  

Each week in chapel, we go out of our way to open ourselves up the Spirit of God, asking it move in and through us so that we may reveal God’s love to one another and to the world. Having the honor of spending so much time with the Lower Schoolers, I can humbly testify to witnessing God’s presence at work in our student body and faculty. I firmly believe the HIES Lower School is steadily becoming a symbol of God here in Georgia and even beyond.

I pray you continue to look for positive symbols of God in the people and world around you; and I’d love for you to share your vision with your children, close friends, and me, too!

With love and prayers,

Chaplain Timothy

_________________________

Explanation of Easter Symbols             

The Passover lamb of the Jewish tradition became one of the most common symbols for Jesus. The butterfly is a symbol of the Resurrection, as a caterpillar disappears into a tomb-like cocoon only to emerge as a butterfly. In Roman mythology, the peacock was Juno's sacred bird and symbolized immortality. Early Christians adopted the peacock as a symbol of eternal life and the Resurrection of Christ. According to ancient myth, the phoenix is a large, beautiful bird that bursts into flame at the moment it would die. Out of the ashes comes a new live bird, restored to its youth, to begin another life cycle. The phoenix is often used as an image of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and the triumph of eternal life over death. The image depicting a pelican pecking its own breast so its starving young can feed on its blood—a reference to Jesus’ likening wine to his blood during the last supper—comes from the line in Psalm 102 “I am like a pelican in the wilderness.” In classical mythology, the dolphin was thought to carry souls to the islands of the dead and return back to the shores of the living. Early Christians adopted the dolphin as a symbol of Jesus’ resurrection.

A Further Note on the Passover-Easter Connection

Like the overlapping Jewish holy day of Passover, Easter’s placement in the calendar is partly symbolic of the season. Passover—which Jesus was celebrating the week of his last supper, arrest, and murder by Roman authorities—is the annual celebration of the Exodus story where death passes over the Hebrews because they listen to God’s call for justice and are led by Moses out from the deadening bondage of slavery towards the new life of the Promise Land. Easter echoes this story: death passes over humanity because, by heeding God’s call for forgiveness over retributive vengeance, Jesus defeats death and fulfills the promise of the resurrection.