From The Interim Pastor:
Oak Trees and Crocuses|
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From The Interim Pastor: Oak Trees and Crocuses |
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A few days ago, while out walking with my dogs, I noticed my favorite signal that Spring is on the way winking up at me at the edge of a sidewalk. Tiny yellow winter crocuses peeked out from underneath the slumbering grass, bravely shivering in the cool breeze. Crocuses will not be reasoned with. They cannot be convinced to retreat to the safety of the soil. They must obey their internal demands to emerge despite continuing threats of ice and snow. The young oak tree outside my office window is not convinced that a shift of seasons is underway. Tenaciously, it clings to faded, brown leaves covering twig ends where new life will tentatively emerge when the summer sun is good and high, thank you very much. And so it is that opposite ends of the botanical spectrum face impending change. Crocuses, with their short life span, know they cannot waste any time waiting until all is ready to trumpet their good news, while the oak tree, hopeful of achieving a venerable life span, waits to let go of what appears long since dead until the last possible minute. The conversation about change at our church seems eternal, almost monotonous at this point. Rather than focus on changes at church, I’d rather pay some attention to those areas of life we might want to change during the season of Lent. Lent provides a liturgical opportunity to reflect on the areas of new life we want to see emerge in our own lives. Lent, which commemorates Jesus’ wandering through the desert for 40 days prior to the beginning of his ministry, invites us to rediscover who we are and who we want to become as people of faith on our own journey toward wholeness. Lent asks us to consider what is holding us back; what is distracting us from our stated intentions; what habits of body or mind are limiting the full expression of our gifts and talents. Lent offers a lens through which we can observe those things we want to change about ourselves and love ourselves into new habits that more fully support who and what we want to become. The blessing of community is that we don’t have to undergo those transformations alone. Here’s an invitation for you. If you would like to change a habit or create a new habit that supports your new life and new growth in the world during Lent, and if you would like virtual support from your church community in that endeavor, I invite you to write to me at Jennifer@fccb.net. With help from our beloved webmaster, Rob Olason, I will put together a blog so we can support each other and share our stories during this transformative Lenten season. The crocus and the oak tree face changes of the season as they must, but we get to face changes of season as we choose. May our choices bless us into new life. Amen. Rev. Jennifer Yocum |