Last year at this time, we were in the middle of Holy Week: Easter Sunday was March 31, 2024. While that timing felt just right last year, this year it feels right to me that we’re still waiting. My body and soul aren’t quite ready to fully embrace all that Easter brings yet. I’m savoring the gradual return of light, taking note of how the sun sets just a bit later out the Sanctuary windows each Lenten Wednesday. Watching the grass perk up just a little with each upward temperature swing, rather than that burst of sudden green we get some years, feels like the right pace. Even the back-and-forth temperatures, and the chance of snow this weekend, feel fitting.Tentativematches my emotions, and, maybe for the first time ever, I appreciate that Creation is taking her time, offering lightness and promise bit by bit. How is it for you? Are you taking it slow this year, too, or are you ready for Spring to break wide open?

Speaking of a slow Spring, I discovered a new-to-me poem by Mary Oliver this week, and wanted to share it with you:

In the north country now it is spring
and there is a certain celebration.
The thrush has come home. He is shy and likes the evening best,
also the hour just before morning; in that blue and gritty light he climbs to his branch,
or smoothly sails there.
It is okay to know only one song if it is this one.
Hear it rise and fall;
the very elements of your soul shiver nicely.
What would spring be without it?
Mostly frogs. But don't worry, he arrives, year after year,
humble and obedient and gorgeous.

You listen and you know you could live a better life than you do.
Be softer, kinder.
And maybe this year you will be able to do it.

Hear how his voice rises and falls.
There is no way to be sufficiently grateful for the gifts we are given,
no way to speak the Lord's name often enough,
though we do try,
and especially now, as that dappled breast breathes
in the pines and heaven's windows in the north country,
now that spring has come, are opened wide.

— Mary Oliver

My prayer for you this week is for the coming of Spring to feeling like a certain celebration in your heart and soul. My prayer for you is that, despite everything, you are able to hear the one song that makes the very elements of your soul shiver nicely, and that you feel heaven's windows open wide.

Blessings,
Jennifer