Technically it’s not spring yet but the weather forecast for today makes it feel like spring isn’t just around the corner, but here. The local garden supply stores have put out the potting soil and mulch bags but it still smells like winter, albeit late winter.
When I lived in Connecticut in a prior life, I would know it was spring when I went running in the early morning. You could smell the grass and the leaves starting to emerge from their hibernation. The air just smelled different; it encircled you, a bit of how you feel when you sense the presence of God enveloping you.
Our English word Lent has mixed origins: Old English for springtime, and the Old Germanic for the lengthening of the day. Sunlight beams into our lives earlier in the day enabling us to breathe in the fragrance of God, opening us to creation and each other. Today, go outside and breathe in the air.
Prayer for the Day
In the quiet of the morning, we look for you, O God,
We breathe you into us in the late winter air;
In the stillness of the night, we hear your voice.
Bring us into your encircling presence, O Lord.
Envelop us, sustain us, so we are empowered
To find sustenance in your love,
In the name of him who lived your Gospel,
Even Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.
Thoughts for the Day
Everything must break open in order to live. The seed must break open in order for the tree to grow. The egg must break open in order for life to emerge. The Earth must be turned and the cloud must burst. You were never meant to stay in your shell.
Thomas Lloyd Qualls, attorney and poet
Feathers fall; soft as a song, light as morning dreams
Eirene Evipidou, Greek poet in Athens
.But you, O God, are kind and true, patient and ruling all things in mercy,
For even if we sin, we are yours, knowing your power;
But we will not sin, for we know that you acknowledge us as yours,
For to know you is complete righteousness…
Wisdom of Solomon 15: 1-3