Physically Isolated but Spiritually Connected
Just One

I began my ministry with the Mayfield congregation on May 1, 2013. In September 2013, I took a picture of this Monarch in the grass behind the parsonage. This was the only Monarch I saw that summer at 28405 Church Road. I have carried a copy of this picture in my paper planner ever since. This “just one” Monarch continues to be part of the ongoing inspiration for me around our Monarch Waystation earth sanctuary space.

Dear Mayfield,

Memorial Day 2014 was on May 26th. That day several people at Mayfield completed a weekend project of laying out the dimensions of the Monarch Waystation in the grass, and then cutting and piecing together heavy black plastic to position and stabilize it in place on top of those dimensions. There the plastic remained for two months as the grass beneath it browned and died, part of the organic process of preparing the soil for the waystation that we imagined. At the time I was a monthly columnist for Groundcover News, the street paper in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Street papers sprang up around the country as micro-economic projects for those without homes and those who were marginally housed in the wake of the recession that began in 2008-2009. In the summer of 2010 Groundcover News began publication and I arrived in Ann Arbor. I wrote monthly for the paper from 2010-2019. My column for the July 2013 issue told the story of the waystation plastic. An excerpt of that column is printed below:

The first step in the project was to put down great sheets of heavyweight black plastic over the [waystation] design. This step was delayed for weeks by our recent harsh winter and the frozen ground the recurring polar vortex left behind. We hope the plastic will provide an organic alternative to massive amounts of chemicals for the elimination of invasive material growing where the waystation will be. I wondered ahead of time what it would be like to stare much of the summer at the beautiful ground behind my home shrouded in black plastic.  It turns out, the design is so striking that even black plastic looks okay as a promise of what’s to come.

The largest challenge so far in our waystation development is keeping the plastic anchored on the ground. Prairie winds are intense and frequent.  Each time the wind twists and repositions portions of plastic where they aren’t supposed to be, we weigh the plastic down even more. There are well over a hundred bricks on it, many heavy pieces of wood from the outdoor woodpile, lawn furniture turned upside down, and an old bench. Yesterday I overturned a heavy duty wheelbarrow on the plastic that seems most vulnerable to wind. I looked around the yard then and realized there’s nothing else there to weigh the plastic down. With the addition of the wheelbarrow, everything we’ve got has been pressed into service.

Big projects, critical issues, game-shifting strategies are like that. They require everything with no promise our efforts will ultimately succeed. The window of opportunity to reestablish necessary vegetation for the Midwestern monarch migration is narrow. We don’t have much time. Will it work?  We’re not sure…It’s an uphill climb…There’s never complete certainty accompanying our attempts to change this situation. But we can’t fail to do it, offering everything we possibly can. In the end, we’re only responsible for the next right step. Then we look for the one that will follow it, together giving as fully as we can, in the unfolding journey.”

Periodically this summer I am going to turn to our Monarch Waystation for inspiration to address our current next right steps taken during this time of worldwide pandemic. We are listening with care to the wisdom of public health departments and scientists and keeping in mind the gospel value of being generous with our care, especially as that care is directed to the most vulnerable in our midst and across wider communities. Instead of extending presence to one another in person, we are maintaining connections through digital materials three times a week, through phone calls, cards, and emails, and through a commitment to pray for and with one another. We don’t know how long this will go on. We don’t know how much more the pandemic will require of us. We don’t know a lot. But as in the summer of 2014, with the black plastic, over a hundred bricks, many chunks of heavy wood, upside down lawn furniture, an old bench, and an overturned heavy duty wheelbarrow, we will bring everything we can to this time too:

  • our ongoing concern for the common good
  • our willingness to engage in healthy public practices of staying home, of hand-washing, of mask-wearing, of physical distancing, and of digital faith life
  • our uncovering and sharing of stories of courage, joy, and hope
  • our imaginative waiting for a new and different season of being in faith in person again

Consider stopping by the Mayfield Monarch Waystation in these summer weeks. Come by yourself, with those with whom you share a home, or with one or two others at an appropriate distance. Listen to the still unfolding wisdom of this space we have been stewarding since the Memorial Day black plastic of 2014. Much healing lies ahead for us in this experience of Covid-19. The Waystation may well have valuable things to offer for that healing. Never forget, just one Monarch was seen in the summer of 2013, before we committed to bringing everything we had to this project.  Peace, Martha