The Word of God is full of paradox, wonderful paradox, for the world to revile and the saints to ponder and worship.

I do my evening pondering on the plot of land where British General William Howe, marching northwest from occupied Philadelphia, hoped to put an end to George Washington’s Continental Army before the winter of 1777 set in in earnest. Washington repelled Howe’s 14,000 troops with Daniel Morgan’s riflemen and Mordecai Gist’s militia, and proceeded, on December 11^th, to winter with his men in Valley Forge.

They are all fallen silent now — Howe, Washington, Cornwallis, Morgan, Gist, and the Quaker housewife, Lydia Darragh, who had tipped off Major John Clark about the British advance. They are mists among the headstones dotting these acres, vapors among vapors — which prompted today’s meditation: I am a pilgrim and alien here, and not to cling desperately to these clods of earth (1 Corinthians 7:29-31).

Ah, but aren’t these trees magnificent! Someone had the good sense to leave nature as feral as possible — pines, spruce, hemlocks, ginkgo, poplar, beech, and my favorite: the knobby sycamores, stately sentries in camouflage fatigues that line the winding acres of Hillside Cemetery. Pennsylvania’s lushness is unfairly augmented by the overlap of two latitudes, its trees much taller than their brethren in New England where I once climbed trees.

Which brought me to paradox: I am a pilgrim and own not one square foot of this beauty (Hebrews 11:13). But this is equally true: All things are mine (1 Corinthians 3:21). And I am feeling as opulent as the daughter of a King.