Noticing new growth from old wounds in nature — a message for the church?

By Vonda DenBoer, Director of Camping & Campground Sustainability

At the women’s retreat held at Ziontario, I, along with about fifty other women, learned about terra divina. This practice invites one to use nature to connect with the divine. We were invited to walk silently throughout the campground and notice things. Then we were invited to pay attention to what we noticed and what it was saying to us. What stands out is not simply what I observed, but the pattern that emerged across what I noticed.

As I walked, I immediately noticed the contrast between decay and life. Healed scars where trees had been trimmed seemed important. A scar is evidence of a wound, but also evidence of healing. The tree does not return to what it was before; it continues to grow around the injury. Perhaps there is a message there for the church as well. Faith communities carry wounds, losses, and disappointments, but they can continue to grow without pretending those wounds never existed.

One tree had a rusty old bolt embedded in its bark, and beneath it was a shiny new bolt. I could find no purpose for the bolts and wondered. Perhaps their meaning lies not in knowing why they were there but in noticing them. Old supports eventually wear out; new supports are added. The tree remains alive while the means of support change.

Decaying leaves cluttered the old path, yet bursting through the piles of leaves were sprouts of new life. Many of us find ourselves holding both grief and hope at the same time. There is grief for ministries, traditions, structures, and ways of being that once brought life but may now be fading. At the same time, there is hope as new expressions of faith emerge, often in unexpected places and forms. The tension between these realities can feel uncomfortable because we naturally want certainty—we want either preservation or transformation. Yet creation itself often holds both simultaneously.

Then I saw a tree with dying branches and was drawn toward it. I was surprised, as I don’t often see elm trees, and yet here it was, striving to live yet losing the battle. Beneath this elm with mostly barren branches was a young elm sapling. The dying elm and the young sapling beneath it offer me a powerful image. Old and new side by side, connected, nourished by the same soil. The sapling grows because the older tree has existed. One makes space for the other.

I thought about life in this church I love—the tension between old and new, young and old, is as old as time itself. Then an elm seed pod dropped right onto my notepaper, almost as a punctuation mark, and I laughed at the irony.

Why had my attention been drawn to the contrast between that which is at the end of its life cycle and new birth emerging—side by side? The pattern that I noticed: scars and healing, decay and growth, old trees and young saplings, rusty bolts and new ones, fallen leaves and emerging shoots. The same theme—again and again.

What was the divine telling me in this moment of time? Was I holding too tightly to the old familiar way of thinking and being called to look for emerging expressions of life? Perhaps the invitation was to trust that God is present not only in what has sustained and nurtured me in the past, but also in what is quietly sprouting beneath the surface. The seed pod that landed on my notebook could almost be heard as a gentle reminder: pay attention to what is being planted, not only to what is passing away.

Creation continually reveals a truth about God's work: endings and beginnings are rarely separated. More often, they stand side by side, just as the dying elm and the young sapling stood together.

The retreat experience also inspired creative responses. The following poem was written by retreat participant Robbin Kerr of the LaSalle Road congregation following the terra divina exercise.

Read Robbin's Poem