Prescribed Burns

On a bike ride through a State park, I saw this sign.  I read it twice because something just grabbed me about it.

There was a huge swath of clear area that emerged unusually amid forest areas thick with trees.  Looking at the clear meadow, my husband and I tried to guess at why no trees grew there and who had cleared it and why.  Then we read this sign.

Fascinating.  The very thing that seems destructive can heal. Can this be true in life as well? Can this be true in my life?

We’ve all had experiences in life that cleared us out, that leveled us, that destroyed us. Sometimes emotionally, sometimes physically, sometimes mentally.

We feel desolate afterwards. Sometimes we look desolate. The world feels bad for us. We feel bad for ourselves. People try to fill us up to make us whole again. We try to fill ourselves up to get whole faster.

This is not necessary. Our desolation is acceptable. Our being cleared out is needed. So we don’t look like the rest of the world around us. So when we start to heal and regrow, we are seemingly behind lives that have not been burned or detoured. So what. We are fine as we are. We don’t need to be made whole quicker. We don’t need to grow quicker. We don’t need to imitate or catch up or pretend we are somewhere we’re not.

Sometimes we are the meadow that has been burned; cleared out and restructuring for growth.

Sometimes we are the trees around it; tall and thriving and surrounded by support.

It is a beautiful cycle, the rise and the fall. Let us respect our own process and the process of others. Let us allow people to heal, let us allow them be. Let us honor our experiences and those of others. Let us remove the pressure to get somewhere. Here is where the growing happens. Here is where the healing happens. Here is where the truth is planted, roots, sprouts, and extends heavenward, branching out wildly and providing shelter and vision for all.