Thursday, April 18, 2013

SHEDDING SEASON

We are into the shedding season now.  Baxter is getting rid of those extra layers of hair as summer approaches.  Needless to say, that means that there is a lot of extra cleaning at this time of the year.  Pet him and your hand collects a coating of hair.  Brush him and the instrument is loaded with excess hair loosened with every stroke.  Sometimes Baxter can just be moving from one spot to another, and if the sun is shining brightly, I can see the floating tufts of hair follow him as he goes.  Thankfully, the shredding season lasts only a couple of weeks, so it is all manageable.  There is no way around it, so I just accept it as part of cat care, and buy some extra lint rollers to avoid looking like a feline cousin.

This is shedding season for us as well.  We are shedding the heavy, bulking coats of winter for shorts and sandals.  We are leaving behind the salt and snow shovels for mulch and garden tools.  We are abandoning the indoors with their TV and computers, for the patio tables and lawn furniture of the back yard.  Nature affects the way we go about our lives, shedding the protections from winter for the lighter, freer style of warm summer days and evenings.

Easter calls us to shed some other coats as well.  Look to the first disciples for examples.  They had to let go of some of their ideas about God and His ways.  No one expected the resurrection of Jesus as the first followers encountered it.  They were looking for a Messiah who would free them from the Roman yoke and make them proud and prosperous again.  They were set free, but from more than military and political subjugation.  They were set free from their sin and from the fear of the powers of evil.  They felt like they had more of life's blessings, so they needed less of its material possessions and shared what they had more generously.  Their pride grew, but it was not in what they had done.  They came to witness to what God had done in Jesus for them and for everyone who would accept Him.  They had to shed those ideas that covered up how God really was the Lord of Life, and they had to travel more lightly with a deeper commitment to the power of God's grace to change others and the world.  Shedding their image of an avenging, mean-spirited God allowed them to be free of their fears, generous with their lives, and hopeful that God's ways would prevail, even if they didn't know how at the time.

Easter changed everything for the first disciples, and it can do so for us.  But we have to shed our cold, wintry hearts; our stubborn, closed minds; and our selfish, greedy attitudes.  In this way, our lighter spirits will allow the power of divine love to heal us and bring us peace.  Baxter's lighter coat leaves tufts of hair around the house, but our lighter spirits leave a reordered world where we can all find hope and confidence in God again.  If we put up with a little shedding of our egos, we will feel more comfortable in the warmth of divine love.