5 Comments
User's avatar
julia's avatar

This idea of grafting provides the clarity I've often sought regarding baptism. I've always winced/quinced at the notion that our births alone are not sufficient evidence of being part of the God's family, regardless of our brokenness. But with the sacrament of grafting, the distinction between birth and rebirth is blurred and honored. It is an act that connects birth and death and resurrection. Thank you for this Midwest midwifery, this Midwistery on the Mystery of baptism and crucifixion, Kerri. Peace.

Kelsey Menehan's avatar

Lovely and illuminating

Shirley Fessel's avatar

I do not buy God ordering blood sacrifice of his son. Abraham learned that. Jesus died because of threats to power. Yet it didn’t work. He lives on just as nature lives on. I like your analogy. The dead tree does not need to be saved. It produces life again by feeding the new. Nature is Sophia.

Noreen O'Brien's avatar

Lovely, Kerri! Wonderful inaugural parable! I for one tend to scapegoat that which may be the site of new life, of growth into beautiful and nourishing possibilities beyond what I think is hopeless or unworthy.

Joyce Kiel's avatar

“If that’s what the Cross means—axe and graft, death and life—“

What a great analogy: the pain of the axe (your lament) and the resulting life (new sprouts from the joining of the old into the new). Blessed Easter.0

Joyce