I made my first visit to Mount St. Helen’s within a year of moving to the Pacific Northwest. The mountain had literally blown its top about 19 years earlier on May 18, 1980. Though quite different from its pre-eruption lushness, the landscape was clearly in regeneration. Lupine (AKA Texas Bluebonnets) carpeted the slopes in blue. Green vegetation—low grasses, shrubs and first return trees spread across the volcanic sands. Insects, rabbits, voles, frogs and more scurried. Even the elk herds had returned. How could this be? The violent pyroclastic flow had made this beautiful wilderness into a moonscape. Biologists assumed that it would never be restored. Yet in 19 short years nature had already made a spectacular come-back. The on-site museum revealed the secret. Underneath the soil untouched by the devastation lived two essential aspects of life—vegetation seeds and burrowing animals. In short order they began working their way to the surface—first responders as it were. Life to the rescue. Going about the business of living, they started the regeneration process. This prepared the way for each succeeding form of plant and animal life. I learned a great lesson that day—life is eternal and it cannot be extinguished. We human beings are expressions of the Divine. Our spiritual mission, our purpose, is to awaken to the power of life within and around us. We are to use our creative abilities to call forth life. We do that by first aligning our thinking and our attitudes with Life—it is everywhere! We affirm Life—“I Am One with the Upward, Progressive Movement of Life.” We take action in life-giving ways as we are guided—expressing values of inclusion, intelligence, respect, and love. Most of all, we heed the words of this old witticism, “The pessimist moans, ‘I could make a better world than this.” The optimist sings, “Go to it; that’s what God put you here for.’ ”
In the Love and Light of the Christ,
Rev. Anna
