Acorn to Oak
ACORN TO OAK An acorn does not ask permission to become the oak. It simply knows what it is called to do. It has been in conversation with the creator And from its seed being dropped into the soil to the rain that fell to be fertilizer, to the draught that threatened its sapling start, to the cracking open, to pushing of itself out of the earth into the garden Each moment is a memory of the struggle to end up here at this unfurling, this opening when it is called into full bloom. Like you, sister, are in full bloom, ready to spread your branches into the future Oh, but to hold onto the soil that made you. As you cover this country in the foliage of grace, ready to celebrate new growth, And in the growing when you have rain, when the soil is rocky, the path uneven When you fall in the forest and seems like no one will hear The ground will rumble with the sound The sound of a thousand voices in Christ who say: There will be no clear cutting today Your body is not logging road. Your body is an acorn which is to say you are also the oak Which is to say that you create life, you hold life which is to say in this living we are linked, which is to say we are many parts, one body moving to a common Target Which is to say we are arrows, which is to say we are flexible but strong, we can still bend and the knees in prayer but RISE like tall pillars to become fortress, which is to we will become safety in unknown terrain, which is to say even wild flowers grow toward the Son which is to say we are a place to start from and a place to rise to. Sister, we can RISE. Together as sisters always, as sisters WE RISE.