Lent

We’re into Lent, it’s grey and flat but don’t be fooled, we’re waiting and preparing for the big events, for resurrection Sunday, for resurrection Spring.  So I’ll bide my time, and enjoy the milder weather, and make sure I notice the buds swelling out from flat, grey bark into round jewels of lemon-green.  The crocuses are up, standing as silent sentinels in the grey, waiting for the sun to tease their fancy so they can open and fill their cups. I have cleared the grass around – they were growing through the carpet of brown leaves, piercing them to wear like a skirt.  Only the purple ones remain, the squirrels have eaten all the yellow.

It’s possible to sit here and be so taken with the damp grey day in front, or the day just gone, or the day ahead, that I don’t notice the birds.  But once you listen they are louder than the grey, the coloured sounds shafting the air.

Knowing that Spring is coming I can prepare for it, make my garden ready, remove the dead twigs and leaves so that when the clock turns further and it bursts in innocent brightness we are ready.  It is the same with Lent, knowing that tending my loss and shadow now will prepare me a heart fit for the overthrowing of dark and the bursting forth of bright life that is Easter.

I am ready.   I can taste the sun in expectation, I can sense the spirit of Jesus in hope and joy.  It is a grey day but don’t be fooled – the breakthrough is coming!