IT'S JUST KEVIN
By Very Rev. Kevin George
WE ARE ENTERING the most Holy time of year. Holy Week, the Triduum, and Easter Sunday are the most incredible days in the Church calendar.
Each year we follow in the footsteps of Jesus as we enter into the story of the Passion of Jesus. His refusal to play by the rules of the Imperial rulers reminds us of how to live our lives. Jesus refuses the way of violence, and choses solidarity with the vulnerable, the oppressed, and the victims of the powers that be. He is fully willing to go to Calvary. His commitment to the way of non-violence is one that will cost him his life. In his farewell discourse, he reminds the disciples that serving him means following him. He reminds them that where the servants are, he will be also.
Each Holy Week we are asked, yet again, can we bear it? Are we willing? Do we believe? Are we willing to go where Jesus goes, are we convinced that even when we go to the darkest places we are never alone? Are we willing to die to the ways of domination, violence, and winning at all cost? Do we believe that should we allow those habits to die, to embrace a habitus of love, kindness, non-violence, sacrifice, and putting others first, that we will indeed inherit new life?
New life! That’s the gift. Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it is but a single grain of wheat. What planted into the Earth in good soil, it bears so much fruit. It sprouts, and green and abundant new life springs forth. In the weeks ahead we will see this very miracle of life play out before us in the verdancy of spring. Around our region, we will see small green shoots, springing forth from the Earth, as farmers engage in the work of bringing for new life. It should be for us an annual reminder of the new life we are promised.
I love the writings of Hildegard of Bingen. St. Hildegard was an eleventh century writer, composer, philosopher, and Christian mystic. One of the fundamental principles of Hildegard’s worldview is Viriditas, which means the “greening power of God.” For Hildegard, viriditas was a metaphor for spiritual and physical health, which is visible in the divine word.
As we look about us this spring might we see behind the greening countryside to see the new life promised in the Easter gospel - the ever-greening work of God. For Hildegard, all of creation is a sign of God’s loving. God is in an ever-greening relationship with all of creation. Behind us are the cold, dark days, and the dormancy of the earth. Yet, God has been at work through those short days.
As we take notice of the greening about us, I pray we might also embrace viriditas as a spiritual practice. I pray we might explore the broader aspects of what Hildegard envisioned, sung about, wrote about, and dreamed about. We are at our best when we are spiritually alive, when our soul is freshened, and fruitful. Anything that hinders that is counter-intuitive to the nature of what has been created. Those grains of insecurity, jealousy, selfishness, violence and hatred that we see about us need to die. There are many ways that our soul may be crushed, our hearts broken or our spirit deflated. All of them work against the ever-greening Love that is God.
I encourage you to see – day by day, or even moment by moment – the ever-greening love of God about you. See it, embrace it, and nourish it! For there are plenty of voices and plenty of messages that would trap us in ariditas! Hold us in dry, parched, and withered places where moisture is scant and greenery is not to be found. For Hildgard, following The Way, meant always moving toward viriditas: especially during times of ariditas. The ever-greening practices of our hearts require that we do not allow our hope to be stolen by those who would interpret our world for us. Using our own voice, our own listening, our own light is all a testimony to the richness and the liberating power of an ever-greening love.
I pray you find the new life promised to us: for we are reminded that death has no power over the ever-greening love of God.
“I am likewise the fiery life of the substance of divinity. I flame over the beauty of the fields and sparkle in the waters, and I burn in sun, moon, and stars. And with an airy wind that sustains all things with invisible life, I raise them up vitally. For air lives in greenness and flowers, waters flow as if alive, the sun, too, lives in his light… Thus I, the fiery force, am hidden in [the winds], and they take fire from me, just as breath continually moves human lungs, and as a windy flame exists in fire. All of these live in their essence and are not found in death, because I am life.”
~ Hildegard of Bingen
Very Rev. Dr. Kevin George is Rector of St. Paul's Cathedral, London, and Dean of Huron.