A Parish Catechist

This image of an empty bird’s nest in a winter tree – with spring approaching – speaks visually to nature’s annual cycles of death and the anticipation of new life.

Seattle – where I live – is in the midst of a cold snap after a period of relative winter warmth. Many of us are ready for the increasing warmth and life that comes with the pending spring.

When I saw this empty bird’s nest and the similar-or-contrasting lack of leaves on the tree, I immediately thought of our own spiritual death, rebirth, and – for many people – the perpetual hope of new life. In Christianity, we learn to die to self. Christ died and rose again – for our salvation. Bird nests are often used year after year for the next year’s new baby birds. Annual cycles of new life. Soon, new leaves – another year of life (the color green of leaves symbolizes vibrancy) – will also begin to spring forth on this winter-cold, bare tree.

When I first tried to photograph this bird’s nest, I zoomed in with my camera in an attempt to photograph the bird’s nest and leaf-less tree branches – without the electrical and phone wires that are also visible when photographing the entire tree (i.e., the photo above).

I then realized that there is also value in photographing the broader tree showing the phone and electrical wires showing (see the photo below). Too often, we desire the vibrant new life that comes from dying to the darkest parts of ourselves…. Yet we let the wires in our lives – those distractions that prevent us from allowing God to rejuvenate new life in us – to prevent new vibrancy of life to emerge in us. Sticking to such distractions serves no good in our lives. How stubborn we can be in refusing to let go of that which keeps us bound to the darkness in and around us.

During this Lenten season, we anticipate the anniversary of Christ’s death and resurrection at Easter. Let us – during this Lenten season – allow God into our hearts to clean out that in each of us that needs to be cleansed. Welcome in new life of the spirit.

Allowing God to transform us into new life requires surrender. We give up control. We give up autonomy. In a sense, we give up whatever sense of “self” we cling to (“I may not like all of me, but ‘me’ is what I’ve got”). In today’s society, many of us must also begin to give up rampant individualism – an individualism that isolates us – to join the community of people around and among us. We are meant to live amongst one another.

Easter is coming.

Kim Burkhardt blogs at A Parish Catechist and The Books of the Ages (and a member of the Association of Catholic Publishers). If you are a new visitor, it would be great to have you follow this blog (thank you!). If you know someone who would like this blog, please share it with them (thank you!). You can also support this blog by clicking here when you are going to shop on Amazon (that lands A Parish Catechist a commission on Amazon sales).