BEING WITH THE LAND

“Perhaps we may make a small beginning by learning to ‘be with’ the land we each inhabit. Learning to love a place no matter how small, to give ourselves in love to its plants, creatures, watershed, and topography. To seek to understand its history, its specificity, and its people on its own terms. To mourn its sorrow, celebrate its abundance, walk its paths in every season. To come to know, not as spectral observers, but in communion.”

1: “Come, everyone who thirsts,
    come to the waters;
and you that have no money,
    come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
    without money and without price.
2: Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread,
    and your labor for that which does not satisfy?
Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good,
   delight yourselves in rich food.
3: Incline your ear, and come to me;
    listen, so that you may live;

10: “For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven
    and do not return there until they have watered the earth,
making it bring forth and sprout,
    giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,
11: so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;
    it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
    and succeed in the thing for which I sent it.

12: “For you shall go out in joy
    and be led forth in peace;
the mountains and the hills before you
    shall burst into song,
    and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.
13: Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress;
    instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle;
and it shall be to the Lord for a memorial,
   for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.”

- Isaiah 55: 1-3, 10-13