TO THE EDITOR:

Everything is in movement. Our blue vessel continues to spin in an outer sea of voidness, paradoxically harboring life. It grows older as the universe expands evermore. Its mountains erode, waters flow, creatures migrate and every year, even the most gargantuan of trees add one more ring to their seemingly wooden hearts. Babies take their firsts, ice cream melts and songs take on new meaning. Time does not go backward, however often it seems that history repeats itself. The things that appear composed are really composing symphonies of movement.

Symphonies invoking grace. Grace that allows things as they once were to no longer be. Grace that accepts uncertainty in what is ahead and, therefore, asks for trust. A trust that our old selves and our old ways must die in order to be made new; hoping that what springs forth will be a little more whole than the life that was before. See, repentance is not about going back (to the good ol’ days); it is about changing one’s mind and pressing onward. I turn and am turned to salt. We yearn to have already attained it, but perfection is the state of being perfected. It is the voyage in which hope is our lighthouse. Love, our compass. And God, the wisest companion, not some far off destination.

The Earth is crying out, overcome by the pain of growth. Meanwhile, inner voices totter its course, promising that return will provide comfort. But I will not circle back to my harbor of ignorance in innocence. For innocent I no longer would be. I will journey on into the void, grasping that life can be found in the most unlikely of places and that fear is just the old me, unwilling to let go of the safety of unknowingness. I will give in to grace. I will accept that my wrestling with Death is faith, not doubt. I will walk away limping, but I will overcome myself. I will continue journeying, trusting those words spoken long ago: “all things new”.

Brody Hed 

Becker, MN