Enduring Legacy

Monday, March 5, 2018
Psalm 107.1
"O give thanks to the LORD, for God is good; God's steadfast love endures forever."

Gratitude is a great place to start this Lenten week. And for a taste of what gratitude to God sounds like, read the whole psalm.

Reflection
But today the "enduring" piece of this Psalm emerges like a shoot breaking through packed ground. It grows and grows and grows, reshaping landscape and perspective of those whom it out-endures.

My daughter has been telling me about Kate Sessions. I don't know how I missed such an enduring legacy in my earlier studies in environmental sciences & ethics. Sadie (my daughter) says Katherine Olivia Sessions, born in 1857, was the first woman to graduate from The University of California in 1881.

Sessions left her enduring legacy by planting trees in San Diego. There's much more to it than that, but that is the gist. She leased land to start a nursery called "Balboa Park" or "City Park," and then "she was to plant one hundred trees a year in the park and furnish three hundred more for planting throughout the city." (Read More.) In 1998, they erected a bronze statue of the "Mother of the Balboa Park."

What strikes me is that Sessions had the vision to begin something that would take a great amount of effort to start, tend and maintain. I will have to read more about what motivated her.

What enduring efforts do we attempt these days? What enduring legacy are we leaving?

Prayer: God of enduring love, let those who are wise give heed to these things, and consider your steadfast love. (Psalm 107:43) Amen.




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