"Heal" | Reflection by Georgia Cosgrove, Director of Advancement

He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.  Psalms 147:3

As the pandemic abruptly stopped life as we knew it during Lent last year, I was, in both a figurative and literal sense, suffering from a broken heart. The emotional pain of witnessing trauma and despair in the lives of dearly loved family members exacerbated a chronic cardiac abnormality, ultimately necessitating hospitalization and surgery in May. In the months since, I have been on a journey of emotional, spiritual, and physical healing that has been “heartily” nourished by our virtual Trinity community.

Nature has also been restorative. From my first walks around the yard when iris were in bloom, to watching the rocketing of tomato and bean plants, to daily visits from twin fawns and their mother, to a multitude of birds serenading and delighting with their antics, to soaring osprey and eagles, the wonders of Mother Earth gave me hope and opened a window to light capable of cancelling out lingering darkness. These words from The Peace of Wild Things by Wendell Berry speak to me of this healing power of the natural world:

“When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things…”                         

In this season of Lent as hope dawns for an end to a dark chapter in all our lives, let us embrace the opportunity to imagine a new path forward out of the shaded forest into the sunshine, to heal together.

Words in the Wilderness - Walk through the season of Lent with Trinity, one word at a time. Every day (except on Sundays) we will post a photo and a brief refection written by someone in our Trinity community. https://www.trinitynewhaven.org/words-in-the-wilderness