Faith Matters | Lakewood Ranch church provides a natural place to find peace with the world
Having escaped a troubling situation at home, a woman found herself searching for peace and found it on a path in the woods. Here, the people of Peace Presbyterian Church have developed beautiful “forest art” in a place set aside for connection with God and neighbor via the natural world.
Another family came to the Peaceful Path for temporary relief from the dread of chemotherapy for their preschool child with a malignant brain tumor. They rejoiced in discovering painted rocks along the path with messages of hope, peace, and kindness.
It all began when a congregation chartered in 2009 was by the providence of God uniquely blessed with 24 acres. Half of the site was a natural wooded forest, adjacent to protected wetland area. When COVID isolation left members feeling stir-crazy at home, they took advantage of the opportunity to create beautiful things in the path. Dried palm tree sheaths form into circular flower shapes. Pieces of dead tree limbs and trunks together create a sense of mutual support and direction. Staghorn ferns, air plants, rustic pottery, huge wreaths of woven vines, and colorfully bright bromeliads add inspiration!
Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice; let the sea roar, and all that fills it; let the field exult, and everything in it. Then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy before the Lord; for he is coming, for he is coming to judge the earth. He will judge the world with righteousness, and the peoples with his truth.” — Psalm 96:11-13.
Children, and those who love children as Jesus did, add painted “kindness” rocks, secretly placed in a variety of locations along the path. These rocks are joyfully claimed as pets or messengers of hope with their words on the back of painted gnomes, hearts, flowers, and woodland creatures.
O come, let us sing to the Lord; let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation! — Psalm 95.
Word gets out in the community, and soon there are many guests on the Peaceful Path. A grandmother, new to the area and grieving the loss of two sons, comes to walk with her young grandchildren for whom she is now mother. The whole family stumbles upon the Peace congregation having an outdoor dance and connects with the church — a peaceful pathway to significant involvement.
Some afternoons, as the sun goes down in our pandemic world, the resident deer family appears along with a pair of hooting owls, as if to say with their presence what the PCUSA Study Catechism states with words,
“God not only preserves the world, but also continually attends to it, ruling and sustaining it with wise and benevolent care. God is concerned for every creature: “The eyes of all look to you, and you give them their food in due season. You open your hand, you satisfy the desire of every living thing” (Psalm 145:15). In particular, God provides for the world by bringing good out of evil, so that nothing evil is permitted to occur that God does not bend finally to the good.”
Along the Peaceful Path, old vines and dead branches, frustrations and grief are bent and twisted into good forms of art. They heal us with “the peace that passes all understanding” (Phil. 4:7) and remind us that “in life and in death we belong to God” (A Brief Statement of Faith, PCUSA).
Faith Matters is written by members of the Bradenton clerical community. Rev. Elizabeth Deibert is pastor and head of staff at Peace Presbyterian Church in Lakewood Ranch, http://peacepcusa.com/