Viriditas (Stay Juicy, Friends)

The Lord will guide you continually, and satisfy your needs in parched places, and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail.
-Isaiah 58:11

It feels this week like we’re in an odd “second spring” in Delaware. We’ve had so much rain and then periods of hot sun that all the growing things are exploding around us. Lawns are impossible to keep up with, gardens are bursting with growth (and weeds!), and all the vines in our back woods are growing two inches a day. A few days ago, I was doing a little weed-whacking on the edge of my property and reached a young pokeweed plant—nature’s version of a water balloon. My face got obliterated with something that resembled a green smoothie. It was a juicy experience. Everywhere you look is green and kind of soggy.

This led me to revisit an image I used this past week in my sermon, as we reflected on Pentecost and the gift of the Holy Spirit. I introduced our church to the work of Hildegard of Bingen. She was a 12th-century Benedictine nun in Germany who challenged the status quo in virtually every way after she had a mystical encounter with God. She was a writer, a composer, a pioneer in natural medicine, and a spiritual leader who left a profound mark on Christianity in her region. She lacks the contemporary recognition she deserves.

She coined a term called viriditas, which can be loosely translated as “greening power.” She believed that the Holy Spirit was present in all of life, swirling around and within us as the divine creative power of God. Just as God breathed life into the earth and into humanity in the Genesis story, we are intended to be like trees on this earth—and the Holy Spirit is the “living sap” that keeps us green, growing, and juicy. Hildegard taught that when we walk in the Spirit, doing the actions of love, peacemaking, and justice, this is the work of God keeping us green—and we would feel new and alive with God’s life flowing through us.

The deepest sin, she said, is drying out. That means moving away from God’s life-giving presence and the ways that we meet God in the world. Drying out is when we stop living in love, devotion, service, and natural wonder. She saw God’s greening power flowing in two directions—one coming from God to us, and another flowing from us into the world.

In the midst of weeks where there is destruction all around us, there are places in our lives and in our souls that can easily develop brown spots. We are getting dried out, and we are desperately in need of God’s greening viriditas—healing us over and over again and keeping us soft and humble and compassionate toward each other. When our world gets harder and drier, friends, we must stay soft. We must stay engaged.

Last night Bethany and I sat outside in our backyard as the sun went down. We drank tea and talked about things of value. We quietly observed the rotation of the earth and the damp ground and the birdsong and the unruly vines around us, all bursting with the greening power of God. We need moments of natural and relational connection so that we don’t dry out. Staying juicy for Jesus.

Some of you really got excited about that phrase and suggested that we start greeting one another on Sundays by saying, “Stay juicy, friend.” Somehow I think that might scare away our visitors, though?
So we’ll just say it here.

Today, may you find ways to soak in the Word of God, in the presence of God, in the beauty of God, in the creation of God, and in the hope of God… so that you stay well-watered and juicy and rooted and caring, and full of all the fruit that the Spirit brings forth in your life when you stick with Jesus. (You can look them up—there’s a list in Galatians 5:22, and they’re really important.)

Jesus, keep us juicy. Amen.

Peace,
Keith