Aimee: A Caretaker of Creation

Picture the scene outside six months ago. If you were in the Dubuque area or anywhere in the northern United States or Canada then you surely have not forgotten how high the snow was the first of February and how many nights temperatures fell below zero all winter long.

Spring came slowly. I watched through March and April and into May to see which perennials, bushes and trees had made it through the hard winter. Our Red Bud tree had only a few flowers, but the leaves finally came. Some of our shrubs which each year had borne the weight of heavy snow, this year had dead brown sections. Our dogwood tree bore no leaves at all.

For years I had nurtured a small evergreen volunteer in a large pot, taking it in during the winter. But last summer, when our 4-year-old granddaughter, Aimee, was visiting from Phoenix, we boldly planted it in the backyard. Covered with snow all winter, now its needles were totally brown. There was absolutely no sign of life; but I could not bear to discard it. Not yet. Aimee would be visiting again this summer. So I waited, and then, in June, new green life pushed through at the ends of its branches, beyond the brown needles.

In mid-June, when I had determined it was time to cut down the obviously dead Dogwood, my husband saw oh-so-small new leaves on the tree.

A hard winter indeed. We have a God of Creation and persistent renewal, giving life amid signs of death. Human beings experience the destructive forces of tornadoes, hurricanes, tsunamis, forest fires, drought and flood.  How can we understand a God of creation in the midst of destruction? Yet many of us believe that the Creator God is also the Renewing God who loves the Creation and calls us to be stewards of the earth, not to dominate and use it only for personal benefit.  We who are part of creation are called to be caretakers. Yes, first conservation. (Some remember when only a handful of people recycled.) Yes, interest in ecology. And yes, the seriousness of climate change. We, who seemingly have so little power or control are participants. I believe the Creator God loves the creation and calls us to watch for the redbuds, and to participate in the renewal of the earth.

Aimee visited again this summer. She saw the brown dead needles and the new green life and said, “The sunshine came!” Together we tended the young tree, still alive.