Mtr Taylor Devine

Dear Friend,

I recently retreated for some wilderness camping. As dusk was settling in in Pine Canyon, a beautiful trail between the Sabino and Mt Lemmon areas, I was scanning the horizon for signs of coyotes or mountain lions, taking in the cool, and enjoying the stars' arrival. My jaw dropped when I saw this flowering plant nestled at the base of a tree. I easily could have missed the beauty and looked right past it, but I'm so glad my eye caught these flowers. In addition to their surprising presence and loveliness, I was struck by the layers of this little plant's life. I don't know the official botany of this evening primrose, but look! Those pink flowers are folding up, and the white petals are now front and center. The image reminded me of the painful and beautiful reality of change. If those pink flowers did not die away the plant might not have the energy for its next phase of life. I am 100% sure this plant was not also thinking these deep thoughts, but I give thanks for the way the natural world can invite us into the depth of our own lives as well. Change is hard. Loss is so hard. Growing is often agonizing. But to cling to what was in our selves may stagnate the beauty that is on the way.

I can imagine a sliver of the agony of the Disciples who first heard ‘I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth." To imagine that Jesus is going to send someone after him-that he can't stay with them, and yet his teaching and his Way are not done, though exciting, would have been an agonizing change. I pray in all the changes and chances of this life that the changeless One leads us and guides us in the ways God's Spirit desires for us.

In Christ,
Mtr Taylor