My little Wiccan, Reincarnated Poison Ivy tree

Spring is almost here . . . maybe.


It is the talk of everyone - "I am SO tired of cold and rainy!"  Honestly I don't know what we are going to do if it gets warm out.  My kids will be like, "what is that thing in the sky that makes me squint?"  


If you look closely you can see little buds coming out on the trees.  They say that this is where the Eastern religions get the idea of a cyclical view of life.  Their ideas on reincarnation come from the idea that the earth goes through a birth, growth and then decline and death . . . only to reseed the world for the next season and find its expression in life again.


Certain sects of Wicca hold the same idea . . . birth, growth, death, birth.


It becomes a naturalistic support of a religion, but it is not very accurate.  Did you take note of those same trees last fall?  They didn't die.  They made little buds and then closed up shop for a few months and sent everything down to the roots until it was warm enough to come back in the spring.  So if anything, the trees and the flowers don't speak of cycles or reincarnation . . . they speak of waiting.


Waiting for the sun to return.  Waiting for the conditions to come back in which we can begin growing again.  If it really mirrored reincarnation, my maple should have died and fallen down last November and this spring I should see a Holly Tree.  I am thankful that doesn't happen . . . who knows what I would get every spring.  Can you imagine? 


"Honey . . . you better sit down . . . this year our Maple is Poison Ivy . . . lots of it."


So as you head outside and see the growth happen, remember . . . it isn't coming back to life, it was alive.  It was just waiting for the sun to return.


Perhaps this is a better reflection of the Christian faith.  As a symbol of our hope in the return of God - we wait for the Son to return.  This is hope for the here and now . . . it makes us bloom as we head into Easter.


And then some day when we die . . . we will wait for the return of the Son to bloom an eternal bloom in the garden of God.


And we believers also groan, even though we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, for we long for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering. We, too, wait with eager hope for the day when God will give us our full rights as his adopted children, including the new bodies he has promised us. Romans 8:23