The following is a short piece I wrote for CNY Inspirations of syracuse.com. I’m invited to write these reflections every so often through InterFaith Works, where I am a member of the Roundtable of Faith Leaders. Three articles are published each month (you can find the other two by clicking here and here), and you can find the general listing of these articles, by me and other local faith leaders, by clicking here.

Waiting for trees to bud is good because it is hard.

Now that is a wacky sentence, isn’t it? However, I will make it even wackier: waiting for trees to bud is holy because it is hard. It is sacred because it is hard.

Hard things are not always holy, of course, nor are holy things always hard. Sometimes things are hard, and if we have control over them, we should change them or stop doing them completely. Sometimes we need to let go of things that are difficult, especially in the spiritual life, because forcing things like prayer or a relationship with the divine and the world rarely gets us anywhere. In addition, forcing anything, whether it is spiritual or otherwise, is a good way to get it stuck. Or misshapen. Or broken.

Nevertheless, some things in our spiritual lives are hard, and they should be. Like sitting in a vigil or meditation. Or like waiting for trees to bud in the springtime. Because the more we look at trees, the more we study them, the more we look out our windows at them or pause to see the tiny buds and how little they’ve grown since we saw them that morning, or the week before, the more of their holiness we’ll see. The more of their sacredness we will see.

This practice of watching trees grow takes time because nature takes time. This practice is good, moreover, because the sacred takes time, too. Sometimes we are struck by a sudden wisdom, like lightning from a clear blue sky, but more often than not, the sacred is kneaded into us like yeast into bread. The sacred is not a thing we see but a thing we become. So let trees, life, and the sacred be hard. Even more will we lean into their reality.