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Listen to me, you who pursue righteousness, you who seek God
Look to the rock from which you were hewn,
and to the quarry from which you were dug.
Look to Abraham and to Sarah who bore you;
For they were but two when I called them,
but once I blessed them they multiplied.

God will comfort Zion; God will comfort all her waste places,
God will comfort all her mounds of ruins.
I will transform her dead ground into Eden,
her moonscape into the garden of God,
a place filled with exuberance and laughter…

This was the lectionary reading from Isaiah this Sunday. When I heard it read aloud in the clipped Danish accent of Hanna, my sister in liturgical ministry, I was immediately transported back to Stonehenge, where I lay my hand upon an ancient heel stone. It made me think of my ancestry, held in ancient stories, and of my—of our—deep connection to the earth. These words and this memory released inside me a wellspring of gratitude for the very real connection I have to such an ancient heritage.

When I returned home and read the text again, I was struck by the feminine language that Isaiah uses for Zion. This is a word which has many meanings, but perhaps most meaningfully to me is how it holds the idea of homeland–the physical or metaphysical place in which we find our source, our identity and our solace. It encouraged me to know that this ancient statement of true things, this old poet’s tongue, still stands. It is an affirmation to me and to my soulsisters, known and unknown, who are feeling as though bits of them have been converted in mounds of ruin–who feel as though they are living in wasted places.

As my dear Jen always says, “Whatever you do hold on to hope…that this is not the end of your story.” Our sisters, our mothers, our ancestral Sarah’s, have been holding on to the hope that the homeland of our hearts and hearths would be comforted—would be made into gardens like unto Eden. Whatever you do today, in whatever way you can, hold on to hope—like a seed in your palm, like the scrap of a fortune cookie paper cupped in your hand. For this is not the end of our story, but the very place from which it is born. Amen. May it be so.

click for more podcasts: Beaches and Bodies, The Care and Keeping of Sacred Stories.
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