Fairy Rings

While I pray for rain in other parts of this country, we’ve had a lot of it around here. So much that mushrooms are popping up everywhere in a way I haven’t seen in the seven years I’ve lived here. 🙂 My dad made sure to point out the fairy rings to my girls.

Fairy rings are circles of mushrooms. The old wives’/folk tale is that fairies sit on mushrooms, so they make mushroom circles when they gather together for a meeting.

I thought it was charming. A little phrase with nostalgia and whimsy in a world full of pressure and change. A tiny tidbit of a tale of innocence, growth, and community.

If things are raining heavily on you, literally or metaphorically, may be the Lord have mercy. May little bits of stubborn life spring up by the working of our gracious God. May it remind you of His mercy; His ability to create, conjure, and restore; and His own Communion and Community that He freely offers to us.

Thank You, Lord. Have mercy on us, Your people in flesh for the sake of the flesh of Your Son. Amen.

 

Writers, it sure can be hard to write when one is grieving the state of the world. So many tragedies and disasters. 🙁 Still, sometimes a glimpse or a phrase can turn one’s mind to better things. Not because we are not suffering, but precisely because we suffer as those with hope and comfort.

Ladies and gentlemen, dare I say we have our own circles? Concentric circles or community with parallel and intersecting vocations, centered on the one true God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

We may not sit on mushrooms. We may not always know what to think or which way to go, but one thing is certain: in Christ we sure have a great place to stand! 🙂

1 Comment

Filed under As Christian Writers, Theological reflection

One Response to Fairy Rings

  1. David J. Susan

    Thanks, Mary, for your “encouraging word” in this time when such are “seldom heard”–especially an encouraging word of God’s providence! Reminds me of the way Tolkien puts those encouraging “glimmers of hope” into LORD OF THE RINGS–in the most trying of times especially.

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