Hello loved ones,
How was your holy week?
I bet it wasn't as holy as mine was.1
I'm writing this before the Easter weekend kicks off, because I'll be running from place to place prepping music, hiding Easter eggs, and making carrot cake. We've got two giant roasts thawing for our Easter dinner with family, and over 1000 candy-filled eggs stashed in a cardboard box at the church, ready to be hidden by the teens and discovered by the kiddos on Holy Saturday morning. On Easter Sunday I'll be playing the Minute Waltz for a postlude, because I've always wanted to do that. I'm nervous about it all going according to the plan, but that's par for the course. If we make a space where people can sing their hearts out, we'll have succeeded. That's always been Linnea's best Easter worship-planning advice: just let us sing!
But I'm scheduling this letter you're about to read for the Monday after Easter, for reasons, partially because I'm sliding into Easter at a bit of a diagonal after a Lent that felt disconnected but more hopeful than past years. I hope you'll stick with me through the thick of it, especially you new readers. This is your baptism into the winding long-windedness of Tethered Letters, I suppose, and no one will blame you if you hit that sweet, sweet unsubscribe button down at the bottom of the letter.
All that being said, I'm grateful you stopped by, and I hope you'll stick around.
When we initially began making plans to plant a native meadow in our backyard, I asked for some advice from the Facebook brain bank. One bit of advice I got that struck me as an interesting stance to take was to literally do nothing with the bit of land we had designated — to just let it grow and see what happened.
Because we wanted to reintroduce native prairie grasses and forbs to the area, as opposed to just watch the lawn go to seed, we did not go this route. Interestingly enough, though, this "just let things happen" advice represents a popular misunderstanding of what we were attempting to do, that is, rewilding.
Rewilding is, essentially, taking steps to return an ecosystem to its original wilderness state. It's been implemented on large landscapes to great effect, and also with disastrous consequences. There are some fascinating case studies to be found on it, with lots of pros and cons for debate. But few of us, I imagine, are interested in introducing large carnivores or ungulates into our backyards. Mostly we just want to promote native species of plants, cut down on water bills, and attract pollinators in hopes they will find our broccoli.
The name rewilding, however, can be misleading. By it's very definition, returning something to its pre-human state is impossible — we cannot technically bring anything back to its original state because our interference is already part of its history, and our interactions now will directly impact it. It will not be "wild" at all. By virtue of our presence and direction, it will be cultivated.
However, the popular (mis)understanding of rewilding seems a bit on the optimistic side. Make a few key changes (the less the better, don't disturb Mother Nature!), then "let-go let-God" and voila! You've got a pristine natural wilderness in your suburban back yard!
On the more reasonable side, rewilding suggests that less overall human interaction means more "wildness" in the results, which can and does happen to an extent in large-scale natural ecosystems. However, the road to getting there requires some human engagement in order to curb the existing consequences of previous human engagement. We have to do something to the land in order to achieve our goal of getting it back to its original state.
For instance, the quarter-acre we designated for our meadow was initially a monoculture lawn. If we wanted it to "rebalance" as it were toward native plants, we had to remove the lawn my parents had established 30-odd years ago, much to their chagrin given how much effort it took to get it planted. In order to do this, we had options that would effect the soil in different ways: poisoning the plants with Round-up, tilling them over, or solarizing them. While we had to remove the existing grasses in order to rewild the plot, we also chose the least invasive, chemical-free method: solarizing.
Poisoning all of the plants would have been quicker, but it would have introduced other problems we would need to solve. Tilling has the potential to unearth tenacious weed seeds long buried, besides disrupting soil structure and contributing to erosion. But had we done nothing at all, we would have had to deal with nearby invasive plants like honeysuckle and briars choking out any natives that happened to find their way through the tangle. Ten to one our scattered seeds would have never established a seed bed.
What I'm getting at is this: the solution to a common problem — ecosystem imbalance, for instance — is rarely, if ever, to do nothing. But approaching the solution with a one-size-fits-all, raze-to-the-roots mentality might do more damage than eventual good. Rewilding (when done effectively) requires careful observation, patience, and incremental action. We work hand-in-hand with the ecosystems and authorities that are already in place.
Maybe you see where I'm going with this.
We've recently been researching local candidates ahead of the Indiana primary in May. There's a collection of "no-compromise" candidates on the docket this time around, all of whom have much to say about how they will clean house if they get elected. Usually they contrast themselves against more moderate legislators who are operating according to the exact same values but with an eye to incremental gains. To these die-hard candidates, anything less than total victory is unacceptable.
Fortunately, in Indiana, we've had the opportunity to see how a few of these candidates do once elected. One such legislator (we'll call him Lawmaker A) spent his two-year term alienating both his opponents and his allies with his activism, authoring no-holds-barred bills that never made it past committee, and generally accomplishing little of substance. He refused to vote for legislation even when it matched his goals because it didn't go far enough, and in fact, actively fought against it as "compromise." Lawmaker A fought against the ecosystem, as an outsider, and therefore had little impact on it. He did not get re-elected, but he is currently running for Congress... so there's that.
His more moderate counterparts (Lawmakers B and C), on the other hand, worked with each other and across the aisle to pass legislation that significantly moved state law in the direction of their values — the same values, notably, that A claims to hold. They authored diverse laws that protected individuals on all sides of controversial issues. B and C supported no-compromise amendments when it mattered, but when those amendments didn't end up in the final bill, they decided that 75% of a win was worth it and helped turn it into law. B and C worked within the ecosystem to do what they could, sticking to their goals while allowing for nuance and operating with compassion.
Given that all three lawmakers A, B, and C hold nearly identical values (and assuming you share those values), which would you rather vote for?
With any given objective, we have choices about how we pursue it. Those choices may seem morally clear-cut, and many of them are. But in many areas of life we operate within ecosystems that we didn't create and have no control over. We live in limited knowledge, in limited systems, as limited beings. B and C aren't "moderate" in their beliefs, but they applied their beliefs in a moderate way because they knew the ecosystem works for the thoughtful, not the brash.
Almost every day I hear someone using some moral high ground to advocate for the wholesale destruction or sidelining of an existing system. And every time I hear it I wonder what the consequences of such an action would really be. I wonder what lines the morally outraged are willing to cross on the way to slaking their outrage. I wonder what alternatives we have available to us, and whether we've really exhausted them, or if we've given up way too soon. I wonder if we've learned anything from history at all.
And then I thank God for the lawmakers who are doing the slow work of researching problems, writing bills, amending laws, advocating for everyone they represent, and turning the other cheek to those who don't understand why they wouldn't just take total power and make everyone do the right thing. I thank God for the checks and balances America's founders put in place to fence in humanity's immense capacity for corruption. We have a long way to go, but we have to get there together.
Establishing a native prairie requires strategic work and patience. We recently did a controlled burn on the plot, using the fire to burn away some of the thatch for better air circulation and sun access. It's a regular practice for us, like our spring succession mowing, like pulling out the tenacious mulberry saplings springing up in various places, like just walking around to see how the plants are doing. We do the same in our gardens, mulching to retain soil and keep weeds down, watering when rain is scarce, installing deer deterrents. We're not sitting around doing nothing and just expecting to have tomatoes by the end of the season. We're active in this process.
But we are not the authors of this process. We do not have unilateral power. And thank God for that! Thank God that we aren't responsible for causing the sun to shine and the rain to fall, or harmonizing the critters and components of the soil. The ecosystems we oversee are not our own, as we are not our own. That is encouraging news, friends. He does indeed have the whole world in His hands. And given this knowledge, we can put our hands to the good work of gardening it.
The same trusting and obeying holds true, I've noticed, in following Jesus — and in no season of the year do I find it more true than during Lent.
I don't recall the first time I heard about Lent, but it was likely during my first year attending a Christian Reformed Church in the suburbs while studying in downtown Chicago. The leadership of the church followed the liturgical calendar as a matter of course, and as a young music student I found it elegant and meaningful. I still do.
This church didn't force congregants to participate in Lenten fasting, but within seconds of finding out about it, I jumped on that bandwagon hard. The first time I "celebrated" Lent, I did a full-on juice fast — meaning I only ate things I could drink through a straw.
I remember expending a lot of holy horror and dramatic hand-waving over spending Lent on something, using it as a soul-purging mechanism, an opportunity to dwell on the darkness that Christians don't dwell on enough because we're too complacent and jovial, etc. You'll excuse my younger self, I hope, as I'm trying to have grace for him myself. You see, he didn't do super well at keeping Lent in those early, heady days.
During that first Lent, in between my morning coffee and my afternoon canteen of tomato soup, I could often be found in the basement rehearsal room desperately eating potato chips from a bag some student forgot when they left for spring break. I was not disciplined, despite all of my efforts to be so and appear so. I am not good at the denial thing. My desert fathers would probably be ashamed of me.
Over the following Lents I toned it down a bit, fasting from breakfast and lunch, or just lunch, or from social media, or from alcohol. In more recent years I've picked up meditative practices, like writing poetry or reading prayers. I've written my share of pieces on the importance of celebrating it, and also on why Mad Max: Fury Road is the best movie to watch during it (which I stand by, because I'll take any excuse I can get to watch that movie).
Lent has been a regular opportunity to encounter the ecosystem of my soul. At first, I attempted to utterly destroy it. Then I tried to control it, then I tried to control a few aspects of it. And as each failure to do so compounded on itself, I started to approach my soul a lot more tentatively. When Ash Wednesday rolled around, I would poke a toe at it and wince.
The Lenten disciplines that were intended to bring me into a greater sense of Christ's presence and sustaining power only showed me how little I am willing to suffer. They only revealed what I've always known and struggled to remember — that I am a sinner in desperate need of grace.
I thought the purpose of Lent was to purge my frailty. Come to find out, it was to reveal it. I wanted to control the wilderness, but instead I began to understand it.
The darker the days when I am confronted by my sinful humanity, the brighter shines the promise that His mercies are new every morning. We are not good, we are saved. We are not pure, we are made holy. I wonder if all of those years spent finding a new, doomed way to performatively rehearse my purity were a mercy in themselves, designed for me by a God who designs our sufferings as well as our triumphs, to reveal his great love for poor sinners.
And then, of course, comes the morning after Easter (I told you I'd get there...) which has always been the most discouraging day of the year for me — because I've never thought I really deserved it. I didn't think I'd earned the celebration. I hadn't rehearsed flagellating myself for the blackness of my heart enough, or something.
Come to find out, there is no earning resurrection. You can only walk in it, practicing the receipt of mercy. After the frustration of Lent brings us to our knees before the Cross and says that we can never actually pay for our sins by any effort of our own, then! Then — we receive the free gift of Jesus Christ slain for us, raised for us. This is what we walk in.
What Christ's resurrection offers us is not perfection but reiteration and reapplication of grace, that we would be reborn daily — today — immersed in an ecosystem of mercy that we did not create and cannot control.
This is why I get up every morning and go forth into a day that I do not deserve, a day rife with mercy and rich with love. This is why we fast during Lent. This is why we feast during Eastertide. This is the hope we walk in as we cultivate our gardens.
Christ has died. Christ has risen. Christ will come again!
Happy Easter, friends.
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This is a joke.
Wow, that juice fast sounded a little too familiar. We’re all working on having compassion for our younger, more zealous selves, right?
Such a wise letter Chris. Thank you. The more I practice centering prayer, the more I see that this life with Jesus is one long lenten journey...
Ps. We just rewatched Mad Max:Fury Road recently and man it holds up! Did you write something on it??