Church News – April

A walk to the beach at Lily Point speaks to me of the season of Lent to Easter

A bright day: The sunlight illuminates tiny yellow flower buds which, from even a slight distance, resemble tiny points of light – wee visions of warmer, brighter, sweeter days to come.

While faithful evergreens speak to the eternal life

from which we emerge, to which we return,

smaller deciduous trees and shrubs symbolize lives sometimes void of joy or peace,

waiting in dimness for the emerging light to warm the soil that holds

our tenacious roots, our tenuous seeds.

There are stores of fullness and joy that wait hidden from view

until the Earth’s axis once again leans more into the sun.

The forty days of Lent represent the forty years the Israelites traveled the wilderness,

learning to trust the God who freed them from slavery, looking to the day when they could enter their homeland,

at which time they tilled and planted, watered and waited

until the time of harvest, which was celebrated as a true thanksgiving

for having been given a land,

and a relationship with that land.

The story of our life with the land is

the story of our life with God,

giver of life and all good things.

When we nurture and care for this gift, we activate these blessings.

When we share the harvest and give thanks,

we complete the cycle of giving and receiving.

We create community and culture.

Life with the land is a life of ritual – seasons of rest, seasons of renewal as we prepare and till the soil for the seasons of pruning and planting, and the gracious rituals of watching and waiting. Then, the harvest, then the sharing:

The drying, canning, preserving, bottling, gifting. 

Then, the season for winter walking,

feeling the full brunt of tilting away from the sun,

faces wrapped against the force of wind off of the water.

Celebrating Thanksgiving,

lighting advent candles.

Walks through forests,

eyes downward in search

of the tiny illuminated buds of spring.