Perhaps we need to think as the rushes live. They reach to the sky. The wind pushes their stalks and twists the fronds into complex designs that shelter the mallards through the winter. The snow falls soaking, weighing down the long-dead plants. They dry out. Some bow down to the earth, returning to protect the new growth and that frog from the hawk overhead.
Maybe we should stand in our places and be the hands that protect. Perhaps we should be the spine the declares safety and truth. It might be that we are to bow to the wonder of the creation, like the reed, doing just what we are made to do. Lifting our hands to lift up others.
