Wanna go for a walk together? Let’s follow the river a ways, the snow has just begun to fall in our little slice of wilderness, and I must venture out into it. “It is still the morning of creation, the morning stars are singing together…”, said John Muir, and I feel its truth in my bones even as the night comes and I breathe deep in wonder climbing down the hill to the river.

This fresh covering of rebirth surrounds me and I hear a sweet echo all around me, “It is good. It is good. It is good.”

We’ve been watching the bodeful waters come down from the mountains the last few weeks. We call the river swollen in this season, it is swollen like a mother. We’ve been waiting outside her aquamarine and rapid white edges carrying the story of the frozen mountainous world above us. This story births into our canyon tonight, finally, fully.

Frosted stories drifting down all around us, rushing through our landscape, fostering stillness among us. We give thanks that it is water cutting through the land, in an ancient path—known and expected—not mud tumbling over land. No, there is a primeval order here—this fresh covering of rebirth surrounds me and I hear a sweet echo, “It is good. It is good. It is good.”

It is pristine. It is light, even in the dark.

It is cleansing. It is healing. It is good.

It is drastic. It is harsh and swift.

It is stunning, even in its cutting. It is good.

I recently captured this image of my oldest and my youngest son walking together, it too mirrors to me a healing story. In truth, something about it stirs me to painful recollection at first. In one glance I remember mistakes I’ve made with my oldest, standards I’ve held for him and I both that were too high—before I understood, before I understood him or myself very well.


Yet, I also see him still here, with me, helping me unlearn so many of my mistakes and some of his own. We are learning new ways together. There is this fresh covering of rebirth surrounding us and I hear a sweet echo all around, “It is good. It is good. It is good.” It is stunning, even in its cutting. It is good.

I see that we are so much more together in heart than we ever would have been without our mistakes. I see a little one walking double step so as not to trail too far behind this big brother he adores, a brother who teaches him things I taught him before, but better. 

I wrote about resurrection earlier this week, this is what I’m talking about. Life that doesn’t end but gets more swollen with life, not because there’s no mistakes in it, and not in spite of mistakes in it—rather because this is what we are made for, this is how we’re designed, and in a very real way, it is still the morning of creation, the morning stars are singing together...

We are created for faithfulness, we are equipped, we are on an ancient path—known and expected in a primeval story, even if we feel neither known nor expected in any world. Our faithfulness is meant to be like the Eternal One’s faithfulness, new every morning. This is a story that we get to watch frosted and falling all around us sometimes, stories rushing through our landscape. What if we let it foster stillness among us, in our slice of wilderness?

What if we gave thanks that, it is good?

“Practice Resurrection”
-Wendell Berry

Love,

Raynna
Hello, I’m a woman, healing in my slice of wilds, exceedingly glad to send this out to you in your own. Let me know if it reached you, how it connected with you, and what else you have encountered lately?

Read the next post in this series here: Cautionary Tales