...Life, Death, Life...

" What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from." T. S. Eliot

What we know of Ruth's personal story begins with endings (death, loss movement, change) and ends with beginnings (new path, new faith, marriage, birth).

Ruth's experience of loss is shared with the elder Naomi, but the arising situation offers a choice: go it alone, or together; sever their bond, or deepen it through continuing to share the journey, and commitment. (Symbolic of the choice of death or life?) Naomi appears to give up and plans to return to her homeland broken and destroyed...possibly to die. An old woman without a husband or sons in such a patriarchal society would have been an outsider and likely had a harsh life without someone to take responsibility for her. Ruth sees this and cannot let it happen; she will not walk away and abandon Naomi to her despair.

Ruth's choice and response embodies hope and the potential for new life that love engenders. through her love, industry, kindness and loyalty, Ruth midwifes the 'return to life' for Naomi, and in doing so, for herself as well. She restores the connections to life: love, hope, family, home, community and purpose. She becomes the protector and provider for Naomi, and in turn is protected and provided for by Boaz. 'What goes around comes around?

Both metaphorically and literally, Ruth's story shows us how endings and death contain the fertile seeds of new life.

" As the tree is fertilised by its own broken branches and fallen leaves, and grows from its own decay, so we and nations are bettered by trial, and refined out of broken hopes and blighted expectations." F.W. Robertson

We must have more faith in the power of love to renew itself than in the power of fear to tear us asunder. The Spirit does not turn away from human frailty.In order to be healed we must reveal our wounds. And so it is that the person with whom we share the deepest love is often the person with whom we share the deepest pain. For when we hold a person deeply in our hearts. we hold their darkness as well as their light. We must accept both faces. The ability to accept another's darkness and our willingness to reveal our own makes us vulnerable to wounding. But these are sacred wounds, and they are a prelude to sacred healing.

All things are in a perpetual metamorphosis. God's love powers an endless evolution in which all things constantly are born and die and change form. God's kingdom exists in a delicate balance between life and death, creation and decay. In the dead of winter, the earth is pregnant with life. The earth knows the virtue of snow and frost which break down the soil and prepare it for new growth.

Birth is an emergence from the darkness, a time of deliverance. The period at or just before birth is often dangerous and involves risk, yet leads out of danger. Every conquest over darkness requires risk; there is no birth of consciousness without pain. But pain is never permanent, it always heralds change. Love can also be painful and brings subtle forms of death in its wake. “It is through wisdom that loss becomes a bridge and tragedy a teaching. That is wisdom's way, and love's way. For it is wisdom that teaches the mind to understand and learn from love. " Ralph Blum

Each moment of our lives is potentially a new birth, if our hearts are open. The wind of grace is always blowing from God but we must be open to its fertile power.

The birth of Obed to Ruth and Boaz gives a sense of completion to Ruth and Naomi's journey out of the darkness which had consumed their former lives. Yet even in this joy, Ruth makes a loving sacrifice for Naomi's restoration. She lets Naomi raise her first-born son, the ancestor of Jesus Christ.

And in the life of the Spirit, we are always at the beginning.