Metamorphosis

It’s been a long hard slog since Christmas, right through Easter. The pandemic drags on in ever more suffused and challenging ways. Nate’s partner Harrison has been down at Mayo since March, due to a surgery to remove a tumor that ripped his aorta. Luther students have been valiantly — and unsucessfully — advocating for Luther Seminary to enter the Reconciling in Christ process. Russia is at war with the Ukraine. Climate castrophe is evident just about everywhere. And now we have a leaked SCOTUS opinion that looks to remove Roe v. Wade as the law of the land.

It’s been hard to hold onto hope. I find myself returning over and over again to Valarie Kaur’s words:

“Joy is the gift of love. Grief is the price of love. Anger protects that which is loved. And when we think we have reached our limit, wonder is the act that returns us to love.”

And in that vein, I have been listening endlessly to Cloud Cult’s newest album, Metamorphosis. It’s probably been years since I’ve listened to an album all the way through, the way the artists intended it. But this one is powerful to me.

Cloud Cult sings of hope and love and life beyond death, in a deeply grounded way that is fully aware of our brokenness, the ways we hurt each other, the longing that lives on when someone dies. This is theology I can lean into.

It regularly brings me to tears, and reminds me to live in wonder.