AfterWords | A Liturgy of Abundance

A short read
by Ren Turner
Artwork by Britt Turner

Heading to church Sunday, it was clear: The pollen bomb had arrived. The car, the cat—really, the whole of creation—coated in yellow powder. The neighborhood azaleas and dogwoods in bloom. Wisteria, clustered like lavender grapes, deep and wide amongst the trees where its vines ran wild.

“Don’t forget your Zyrtec!” I say to Britt.

With the flowering trees come the insects. Then the migratory birds. All of it synced to creation’s metronome. Nothing measured, efficient or anxious. Just wastefully generous.

Noel said Genesis 1 is a song of generosity in creation. A liturgy of abundance that is designed to multiply and is good. Very good.

And for me, when I open my eyes and see the daffodils and feel that pollen in my throat and hear the carpenter bees and watch my children play in the late evening sunlight, I not only feel alive, but sense that this liturgy of creation is here and now. All around us.

So yes. It felt like a perfect day to talk about abundance.

And to find rest in Jesus’ words from the Sermon on the Mount:

“Do not worry about your life.”

“Look at the birds that do not sow or reap or store away in barns.”

“Can you add a single hour to life by worrying?”

“See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin.”

“Seek first the kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”

And yet, If I’m honest, I now find myself in the middle of another ordinary week struggling to find that abundance. Overwhelm is back. You know the drill. Minor problems to be sure, but still: There’s work and the kids’ school, then baseball and ballet and the dog needs an electric fence to stop running away and we haven’t even thought about getting our tax stuff together. I’m not trying to be overly dramatic here, but the line between thriving and surviving seems awfully thin, and a mere shift of the wind seems to thrust me to the wrong end.

That’s scarcity for you.

I’m reminded of the story Noel shared about Jesus and the workers in the vineyard. “This story is offensive to our view of fairness,” Noel said. “Yet abundance is the currency of the kingdom. God is not a stingy caretaker but a generous king.”

This God of abundance is what I yearn for in the deepest parts of my being. I desire to experience my reality in this way. And to detach from the old, limited loves that keep me pinned down towards scarcity.

So that I may become a person as described in The Way of Paradox, who “is simply free, restful, open and receptive to the reality of the present moment, and whatever there is of God in it.”

Just as I imagine the pear trees must feel right about now.