Resurrection Fern

A trip to visit newly retired friends on the Georgia coast this past week was a welcome respite from the lingering gray landscape of the lake.  The warm air and smell of the ocean and marsh felt like an embrace. The world of marsh and shore restores me unlike any other place.

 One by one over the last few years my close friends have started retiring and reshaping their lives for the years ahead.  It has been a wonder to watch the different ways  each have dealt with the choices involved to close down one way of being and begin opening up to another.  If you have worked for decades and juggled a life of friends, church, and family, coming to a full stop is no small event. Even those who are not retiring are downsizing and simplifying..  Its as if they hear a mystical trumpet call announcing the time has come to pursue the aspects of life that were stored away while work and family took precedence.

The house my friends chose borders the marsh. At the edge of the yard a beautiful live oak tree full of resurrection fern leans out over the marsh grass,  a plant that earned its name by turning brown and dormant during dry spells as it was doing now. Looking at it covering the heart and arms of the tree I thought about how beautiful it would look once the rains arrived and the tight crinkly brown fronds transformed overnight into dense green fern.

I've been thinking about that resurrection fern a good deal since I came home.  It is a powerful image for these later life years. Just like that fern something dormant in us does wake up at the trumpet's call because deep down we know it is announcing not the end of our usefulness but the coming of rain that will resurrect us from an old life and propel us into opportunities for a completely new one. It signals the end of the driving need of the first half of life and in the gathering stillness clears the way for us to discover all that energy  has changed us. All that living and working has been preparing us for what we choose to do with the time remaining. Despite the challenges that remain in our lives, many of us find ourselves freer and more aware of who we are than ever before. And even if we are bewildered by the freedom, we still have the distillation in us of having lived and tasted life.  Something long quiet gets called back to life, just like that fern. If we are willing, we can turn and see the shape of our lives. There is still time to use what we have learned and let that enrich the parts of ourselves we have never explored: the talents and passions we put away in order to make our way in the world. Here at what we thought was the end, we get another beginning and if we accept it, our lives become a blessing to us and to the world in ways we may not ever have thought possible.. Opening my email after I returned home I learned the rains had moved in after I left.  The live oak at the edge of the marsh was now covered in a luxuriant  green blanket of fern.  I smiled and smiled.  Something to think about.