Last week I blogged about some of my internal struggles. (I promise I don’t want this space to become my public therapy journal). But I’ve also been noticing a tension through pastoral conversations that many of us seem to be living in lately.
It’s that strange in-between season. The betwixt and between. The moment when you get bad news… and then still laugh to the point of tears in conversation with a friend. When you’re crying over the world and still manage to stand in awe at nature.
Sometimes the ache is personal, like a diagnosis, a loss, and a hard decision. Other times, it’s the kind of ache we absorb just by reading the news: war, disaster, political chaos, injustice. And yet, not everything is terrible. That’s part of the tension, too.
We live in a world that’s both blooming and burning.
Last fall, Pastor Heather shared a song with me that I haven’t stopped thinking about: A Time for Flowers by Emily Scott Robinson.
The lyrics paint a picture of someone walking down a road with a heavy heart feeling like the darkness will never end until she meets a woman in a field, sowing flower seeds while singing softly.
The singer asks, “Why plant seeds when the world feels so broken?” And the woman replies:
“Honey, I’ve lived long enough to learn That the time for flowers will come again. Maybe in a year, maybe in ten There are days despair will win But the time for flowers will come again.”
It’s a sacred truth that Robinson is singing. There will be days when despair wins. And there will be days when flowers bloom anyway. We are made to feel both. Or as I often say, multiple things can be true at the same time.
Sometimes we call this paradox “the already and not yet.” God’s kingdom is blooming here and now and yet we know the world still burns. Jesus, in his ministry, felt this too: joy and pain, celebration and sorrow, blooming and burning all held together in one human life.
I recently came across a prayer practice by Heather Grantham of Hamline Church that captures this beautifully:
The world is both burning & blooming You get the bad news and the sunrise in the same day. You cry over the headlines, then you laugh at a baby wearing a hat shaped like a bear. This is the dual citizenship of being alive. Rage and reverence, Grief and grace. You are allowed to feel both. You are allowed to scream, & still notice how good the soup is. You don’t have to choose. Let it all in.
Let it all in. God does.
This is your permission slip straight from your pastor’s desk to hold joy and sorrow together without guilt. To let your heart be full of beauty, even if the world feels like it’s falling apart. To feel deeply, love fiercely, and still laugh at the silly things.
It is holy to plant flowers while the fires rage. It is faithful to cling to hope even when you’re not sure it’ll bloom. It is Christlike to weep and still choose wonder.
So, grace and peace to you, friends, in the blooming and the burning.
