Horizons – February 2024

LENT 2024: Deeper Roots; Wide-spreading Branches – May Spring come to us, be in us, and recreate new life in us!

The season of Lent starts early this year. This forty-day season of preparing our hearts for the amazing good news of the Resurrection begins on Ash Wednesday, February 14. The word “Lent” comes from the Old English word “lencten,” which means “lengthen” and “Spring.” As the days grow longer, signs of Spring begin to emerge: longer and warmer days, birdsong, tender shoots of green and budding flowers. It’s as if all creation is preparing for new life, rejoicing all together in the promise of God’s ever-growing and ever-regenerating love.

This imagery will be familiar to all you gardeners, and maybe to those of us whose grandparents and great-grandparents were farmers. Watch for special Lenten activities at church—visiting gardens, including “The Farm,” a project of Upward Bound House; view photographs by Emily Payne in the Fireside Room; take a small plumeria cutting from our beautiful tree to grow your own. Listen for music that sings these themes: “In the bulb, there is a flower, in the seed an apple tree, in cocoons, a hidden promise: butterflies will soon be free! In the cold and snow of winter, there’s a spring that waits to be, unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see.”

As we journey together through Lent towards the great day of Easter this year, we will be drawing on Celtic prayers in our worship. They are ripe with images of God’s renewing love in all creation. Here’s one from Celtic Treasure by J. Philip Newell:

For rest in the night and the day’s busyness,
for the silence of the winter earth
followed by spring’s energy and summer’s fruiting,
thanks be to you, O God.
In the patterns of the seasons,
in the rhythm of our days,
show us the stillness that renews life,
the letting go that deepens our strength of soul.

May your soul be a garden of growth and delight this Lent. Our God is making all things new!