Snow falls. Again. Fat, fluffy, furious -- all the adjectives you've heard used to describe snowflakes and snowfall. The only difference is that snow is falling in Tennessee. You know, the "Sunny South." Temporary home of leagues of Canadian snowbirders who, like we natives, are wondering if this winter will ever end. We've seen snow fall every week of 2010. Typically, the crocuses are casting color on the shrubs and under the trees on which branches swell with the promise of soon-blossoming buds. But not this year. Death lingers. Barren branches creak in the wind against a steely gray sky, their trunks wrapped in white as if wrapped in the grave clothes of old. The forest around my house looks much like a cemetery with white spires trying to twist themselves out of Death's cold, white grasp.
Yet, somehow it seems perfect that today evokes images of death, of graves and mourning and darkness of heart, for today is the first day of Lent. Lent, that season of awareness of sacrifice and loss. Lent, the path the leads to betrayal and death, to grave clothes and mourning.
As I look out my window at the white-wrapped landscape, my mind turns to the bulbs that today lie enveloped in all that deathly white. Bulbs that, for now, await that call from their Creator to burst forth and bring life to my world, just as He burst forth from His tomb, trampling down Death by His death and bringing life to a death-shrouded world on that glorious Sunday morning so many winters ago.
Yes, it seems fitting that today this world is shrouded in white. We wait. We prepare. We long for His coming, when all His creation lifts up its voice to praise Him who brings new life. The grave clothes will be cast aside for wedding garments to greet The Bridegroom.
New life comes.
Your images make me long for spring, knowing I must pass through this time of sorrow first.
Posted by: Joan Kirkpatrick | February 15, 2010 at 01:01 PM