Romans 8:22
We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.
There is a deep swell in the earth. She writhes and aches, she cannot settle. She can find no place or pose of comfort. Rest and peace are beyond her reach. There are no words, and if there were no breath to carry them. All she can do is exhale the noises of deep animal loss as the waves of energy pull at her very core.
She is afraid, afraid that she will rip and burst, that the heat within will flow as torrents of burning rock, consuming everything. Afraid that she cannot hold this tension, each twist and tug a battle for balance. The fear of being torn, of all that is rooted crumbling in a cacophony of quake and blast. All around her war is raging, violence spreads and flows like unstaunchable blood. Storms batter her from without and within, but she must ride them, she must breathe. For the time is almost here.
She labours in the light and in the dark, feeding, quenching, nourishing, reaching deep and drawing life from the dirt she bears. She was made to carry life within and to birth new times and new hopes. She pours water into the barren places and rivers flow in her dry lands so life can swell and bloom. She warms the oceans with her pulsing heart so that currents keep the life in motion. The gifts she gives are our daily bread.
Yet she groans in pain and anticipation, for birth is coming, coming soon. In final hours the pain becomes all, the groans her only language, the expectation overwhelming, the hope flooding, the struggle all encompassing.
This it the earth, our mother, our home. We her children are now midwives of the future that is not written. This is God, our father. We his children are the bearers of the life that is to come.
PICTURA POESIS 