Roses and Deadwood... not the Cable Show

10:00 a.m. Friday April 20
Just came in from pruning my climbing roses, which I noticed upon arriving home mid-morning, are about to burst forth in a pink frenzy of riotous blooms.

Without changing out of my flowered rayon skirt and leather boots, in my zest to prune for a few minutes, in a Donna Reed mode, I decided to cut away dead branches that were straddling the top of the vines to give them a lift. Ducking also under wet strands to clear out dead brush, the wind swirled around me and flung raindrops clinging to the leaves in my face, while the skies threated to give Seymour Road another spring shower.

I’d dressed in ‘work clothes’ earlier this morning to visit with a dear friend of mine about Catholicism, the renewal of the church after all of the scandal, and the mysteries of faith. ( The Catholic church sounds like a celebrity, doesn’t it? Fame, scandal, redemption. Repeat. At least they keep doggedly chasing reconciliation and renewal. ) But I digress.

For years now I have yearned to part of a band of believers who delve deeply into the mystery of faith, not simply staying content with the finite and glorious result of believing in the Risen Christ and gaining eternal life. That IS the crux of our faith,  and our hope, but not the day-to-day reality of it. The day to day requires work and involves pain and struggle as well as joy.  So many people today treat their faith journey like they do laundry – tackle it all on one day and put it away until it needs to be done again.

Faith isn’t a weekly chore. It’s a growing, living, tangled entity that requires delving into prickly branches. It's lifelong gardening of the soul. 

Pruning the thorny stems and freeing the bud-laden runners from a sodden a mass of deadwood, I reflected on our morning conversation. Mainline Protestant churches have devolved from revolution and reform and vigor for chasing after Christ’s footsteps to a slow shuffle of the same, albeit, multi-denominational dance pattern.

“ I’m saved, Jesus rose, I give to the poor, it’s all good,” steadily worn deep grooves worn into the floor of many mainline denominations. Grooves that young people and folks who yearn for the freshness of Jesus, stumble over while they try to dance to the music they hear in their hearts.

Pruning the roses is what I am doing in my soul, today.

 Cutting away the deadwood that has lain on my heart, in the decades-old patterns in which I have “danced” -- patterns that I have let others lay down for me. This spring holds new growth, new runners, thorns and all.

As my gloved hands carefully gathered cuttings to pitch into the waiting wheelbarrow, a thorn caught on my skirt, threatening to disturb the delicate weave. I put down the cuttings to detach it from the skirt-flowers with which it had engaged. As carefully as I picked them up again, though, through the leather gloves, those thorns pressed through -- and HURT!

The life that Jesus the Carpenter led was not ALL Easter Sunday and the empty cross. He got snagged by authorities as He wandered homeless, and was pierced by soldiers at the end of His human life. Those thorns placed on His head HURT – and He ached in agony for us, so that we would know we are not alone on The Journey to the Kingdom.

Why would I go prune roses in a rayon skirt and heels, on a scattered-shower spring day?

I wanted to give those new roses a chance to bloom fully -- without the deadwood sucking all the life out of the vine.

Why would God, the creator of the Universe, choose to become human? Same reason.

May you be blessed this spring and always…