SPRING 2020

Ahh, spring your beauty of grass as green as green can be, purple crocuses with bright orange centers that have bloomed, periwinkle anemones with their white star center, cheery yellow daffodils, bright yellow forsythia, tulips with buds still wrapped in green sleeves,  trees with buds just waiting to burst in flowers, sun that shines warm and days that grow longer, all belie the terror of the unseen enemy and bringer of death. How you are so different from all other springs I have known in my life.
   Full of rebirth, renewal and yet...not among us. You try to fill us with hope, but with each morning we wonder, are we next, is this my last day to enjoy, to savor, to give thanks for?
   Each night we give God thanks for another day of life, to see the beauty of creation around us, to be
together.
   It should start feeling like Easter, but it feels like Good Friday or Holy Saturday that goes on far longer than it did for our Lord and Savior. Oh, how we long for Easter. Oh, how we long to survive this modern day plague of coronavirus. Oh, how we long to celebrate Easter with our parishioners. There will be no Easter Egg Hunt for the youngsters. No Easter breakfast. No majestic organ sounding out, "Jesus Christ is Risen Today." And yet, He is risen. And yet Easter comes. Our celebration will be more subdued. But may we shout out in the face of death around us, Christ is Risen! Alleluia! May hope come and nestle within us. May we know that resurrection life is ours as well. No matter what happens, Christ has won for us eternal life, new life, life everlasting forever with God whom we so love and who loves us so deeply. There will be those who survive. But I cannot say for sure that I will be among them. I pray that I am but so are all the rest.
   Trust. Hope. Believe. Have faith. Stand firm with God. And love, each day and every day, every breath, every beauty, every meal shared together with spouse and family, every phone call and conversation with family, friends whom we cannot see or be with at this time.
   Spring such a beautiful time, help us, O God, to savor each day, each budding and blooming. Tot trust the promise of Easter fulfilled in Christ Jesus our Lord. To still shout out, "Alleluia! Christ is risen", for such a time as this, for us, for all of creation.