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Kimberly P Chastain, Pastor
One of the happiest moments of my life was the morning I got a phone call from my son to tell me that my first grandchild, Evelyn Elise, was born. Like the Grinch, I felt my heart grow six sizes that day. She will turn 4 in June, and has been a joy, companion, friend and teacher from the moment she came into my life.
So it was that my heart broke one morning in April, when my son called again to tell me that Evie has been diagnosed with a rare genetic condition called MED13L, which will limit her growth and the possibilities for her future. We have known since early days that she had some challenges, and her parents have been actively pursuing therapies and opportunities for her — but there’s something about receiving a diagnosis, a label, that makes the hopes and fears collide into something larger than grief and more overwhelming than anger. Ben put it like this: “It’s really hard to prepare for a world where Evie will still need love and care and we may not be around to provide it.”
Little is known about the condition; it has only been identified in the medical literature since 2019. It includes small size, cognitive impairment, limited ability to speak, and a bunch of other stuff that Evie seems to have escaped so far. We don’t know for sure what the future will hold for her, only that it will not look like we thought it would when we dreamed a “normal” path for her life.
In some ways, I suppose that this is the journey every family takes with each of their children — we all have expectations and dreams that we must give up if we are to see our loved ones as they are, and to accept that, in the words of Khalil Gibran, “they dwell in the house of tomorrow.” Hardest of all is the helplessness that comes with knowing that we can’t protect them from what lies ahead, only love them and be with them on the way.
Evie is still the same person — joyous, loving, curious, generous — and I am grateful for the beauty she has already brought to the world, even as I rage against the tiny break in a single gene that means it will be harder than I want it to be.
The Indigo Girls sing a song called “Keeper of My Heart” that pretty well describes my journey in recent weeks, and I expect it will resonate for a long time. They sing: “Oh, you precious kid — I have emotion and it’s just for you. I see a warrior, barefoot and dancing, with tears of pain and beauty and all of this is true for you,” and then:
Lift me through my love and anger… my arms are burning, but they’re open wide!
Amen.
Grace and peace,
Pastor Kimberly
Becky Kindig, Associate Pastor
Greetings friends!
I love the springtime. It is my favorite time of the year. The sunlight stays longer, the flowers start to bloom, the trees leaf out, and the creatures come back from hibernation or from their winter migration spots. It’s like the whole world comes to life. And while not everyone enjoys insects or snakes, they are God’s creatures and important parts of the ecosystem of our planet we are called to share with them.
Several years ago for Earth Day I heard about a movement called No-Mow May. It is a way to cut down on using gas to mow your yard, it leaves the first blooming flowers for the insects that are just waking up, and entices birds into the area to eat the bugs. A big win in my book. So we started letting the backyard just grow during May and not worrying about getting the grass cut. Our backyard is at the bottom of a big hill and often very swampy, so it is difficult to try to cut the grass anyway. I was amazed at the flowers that sprang up that year and that have continued to spread ever since. And since we had success with that, we decided to leave a whole large area of the backyard unmowed the last two years all summer to see what would come. And with that change, the orioles that come to my jelly feeder in May now stay all summer since there are plenty of insects to eat. We also have lots of other birds and butterflies, frogs and snakes, and come summer, we have so many fireflies! It turns out that mowing the yard and keeping it “neat” takes away the places for them to live.
Cuckoo flower and buttercups in my backyard
Baltimore Oriole at my jelly feeder
Tiny garter snake by my front porch
I have also started to plant native species in my flower gardens to help the insects that feed off of them even more. It has been a delight to see monarch caterpillars crawling on my milkweed and goldfinches feasting off the dried-up heads on my joe pye weed. I have lots of different kinds of tiny wasps that eat the pests of my tomato plants. Giving nature what it needs has also benefited me.
This year I have heard some push-back to the No-Mow May movement that has made me think. The month that people don’t mow gives nesting sites for creatures like bunnies and some ground nesting birds. When we leave that space for the month, then mow it, it destroys the home for those creatures and often ends up hurting the babies that were there. That is the opposite of what people wanted to do. So this year we mowed the areas close to the house early that we knew we wanted mowed later to help defray some of that danger. We will walk the area before we mow it to look for rabbit nests or snakes. And we may decide to mow some of it sooner than the end of May. But we also will probably leave a little bit more land wild to share with the creatures we co-exist with. It’s good practice in thinking empathetically. We need practice thinking about the needs of others and the earth around us instead of just about ourselves. And I think that lesson stretches further than my backyard. Happy spring everyone!
Pastor Becky
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