From Hopelessness to Joy

Beloved:
          The first time I had a pile of mulch dumped on this driveway it took me a week to spread a quarter of it and three hours for my son to spread the rest of it.  Now it needs redoing and my son lives in Manhattan, so a man I found on the NextDoor app is coming to measure up my beds and figure out how much to buy.  He’s also going to price some extra work for me:  pulling two shrub stumps, trimming the others back, and extending my front flower bed.  This heavy work isn’t fun for me any more.  It takes too long and leaves me sore for days.  I’d rather plan and plant, weed and water, stake and prune and harvest.  Mostly I just like watching it all grow.  I share this tiny, half shady yard with a dozen digging squirrels and a mole or two who, thankfully, are not making dirt volcanoes in my yard like their comrades across the street.

          Later - it was good to walk my little yard with the landscaper just now.  Turns out his mama taught him the trade in this very neighborhood when they both worked for the company who cared for it twenty years ago.  Daffodils and tulip blades are well through the ground.  One tiny purple stem of one peony bush has pushed above the dirt.  The viburnum flower buds are set and the creeping phlox is greening up again.

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          It was good to walk this tiny dot of ground if for no other reason than to remember earth’s twirling traverse around the sun is subject to nothing within the power of men, or women.  The sun rises no matter how dark the night, and spring comes no matter how long the winter.  The buds and flowers bear witness to the time all healing takes, so much of it unseen and unmeasurable, experienced as absence, grief and pain.  An absence to be sat with, for as long as the grieving takes, until one day the light within feels not quite so dark or heavy as it did the last time we poked at it, the hurt not quite so tender.  Relieved is an okay way to feel.  Glad to be just that much better does not deny the severity of the injury.
          Lent bridges winter and springtime for this reason, carrying our prayer and worship from hopelessness to joy.   The light and air, the life below and above ground are telling the wonder of God at work within us too, bringing us back to life too.  I pray this season allows you time for reflection on the healing you are experiencing these days.
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~peace & prayers,
pastor annette