We love each other like this.

All weekend, I have been thinking about death and resurrection.

We had rain the other day. The first day it hovered, teasing us with a few drops here, a few there. It covered our valley like a warm hand. We were trapped inside along with the smoke. Though the air quality was still bad, I felt encouraged by the cool air and decided to go for a long walk. I have missed walking.

Somewhere along the way, when I was still far from home, the rain began in earnest. I walked in it, beside a part of the jungle that has recently burned in a large fire, with the ground blackened and the leaves shriveled. Rain is a good thing in this season, and yet, as I walked, I could smell miles and miles of damp ashes, like a wet ashtray, or a soggy piece of burnt toast. I walked for forty-five minutes more, breathing in the smell of the burned earth.

There were seeds everywhere. These jungle trees know how to proliferate, they throw seeds along great distances with pods meant for flying or floating. I picked one of them up—the most beautiful thing, a seed with pink wings like flower petals.

I do not have the power to make this seed grow. I do nothing, and yet it springs into a tree. Like resurrection, I cannot force it. The power within Jesus caused him to spring up out of the earth when violence and breaking tried to bury him. I meditate on resurrection, I am thankful for it, I enter into its joy. And yet, none of its power comes from me. I am a spectator and receptacle of the goodness of God. Even if I don’t fully understand what is happening, why this soil has burned.

I feel more like the burned earth than the seed right now. But all these seeds, from all these years, they will leap up out of the earth, and not from my power. Even from soil that we have worked for, that has been scorched beyond recognition.

I walked home deeply thankful, again, that I am not God. Neither my longing, my power, or my devotion will make the resurrection happen. God does what God does—creates, redeems, loves, and rescues life from death.

I am just the smallest bird. I am the burned earth. I wait and witness it all. God gives and I receive, and we love each other like this.

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