The sprig of flowers in the picture belongs to a plant that appeared at the bottom of my new garden quite recently, there was nothing visible in the winter - and none of us could name it - but you may know it quite well! After a little research, however, I find that it is called dicentra spectabilis alba a native of the Far East from Alaska down to Japan. It is surely a spectacular sign of the resurgent nature of the flora which surrounds us in many places all over the world. It looks quite fragile, waving about in the breezes but in fact it is a strong grower and intends to make a statement about itself, and a beautiful one too. It's a small sign of the astonishing vibrance of the creative powers of earth, water and air - and seed. In Norway, above the Arctic circle they are preparing to bury all the seed known to us, in a huge natural refrigeration plant carved into the permafrost and rock of the remote Svalbard peninsula about 620 miles from the North Pole. It will eventually house 3 million seed samples from every country in the world. These seeds are for food crops - an insurance in case some unknown disaster overcomes us. I hope that they also have some flower seed there!

The terrible recent natural disasters that have happened in Burma and China remind us of the instability of our planet and of the numerous tragedies that have happened during the recorded history of the world. The questions these disasters raise for any understanding of a creator of the universe will never be answered satisfactorily. We are part of an immense, universal creation. But tragedy for us humans is the other side of the coin to spectacular beauty and fruition. Arguments about how the creator can 'allow' natural disasters to happen rarely take into account, or even name, the fact that there is beauty, not of our making, surrounding many of us. We are not able to explain this beauty - beauty in creation and beauty in persons (and that not only on the surface!).

Yet it takes only a small incident to destroy our satisfaction with the plus side of living, enjoying the beauty and love which so often surrounds us. We are as fragile as the planet! Nothing can take away the pain in these circumstances, great or small. But for each person there is a glimmer of light, recognized, if not seen, in the recesses of our nature. Made for relationship with others in this creation, the possibility of meeting with another and seeing them as 'person' like oneself, is the step towards the possibility of realizing the innate relationship with the creator, the Other, as 'Person'. More often our relationships between ourselves and the world of persons surrounding us is often impersonal. But if there is a God, then the reasoning of the radical atheists citing his/her callousness as regards our terrible trials in this life, is only an illusion. Because there is more to us than just the weighing up of events and people and things that concern us daily. We have the capacity within ourselves to meet with another as 'You' rather than 'It' and if that is true of our family and neighbours, then it is true of the You who can be spoken of as he who upholds all creation even as it crumbles before our eyes.

Is this a desperate argument for the God who is love at a time in the West when any understanding of the divine, transcendent side of human nature is at an all time low? No! Despite our agnosticism in the face of a declining religious presence we are all still inclined to look for some meaning to life in this amazing universe. The answer lies within ourselves where there is a capacity to be aware of the Other who continually comes to meet us where we are and in whatever circumstances. For the Christian, this awareness has been immensely enlarged by meeting with the Christ, the risen Jesus. The Johannine sayings are full of the hope that Jesus brings to the world - "I came that they may have life and have it abundantly." In the Father there is this promise of resurgence for all.