Thought for the Week, March 03 2023

Is the blackthorn out? My sister in Australia asks me. It’ll be the blackthorn winter next, she can’t wait to say.

 

The blackthorn blossoms, filling the braesides with wedding whiteness, and then just when you think winter is gone, back it comes with a savage bite.

 

My sister’s annual question is one of the signs that spring is on its way.

 

Last week, the crescent moon shone crystalline in the cerulean sky, with the Evening Star above it. Like glass. At the second full moon from now, it will be Easter.

 

I love to watch the moon at this season, counting the season by its waxing and waning, as our ancestors from Kilmartin Glen did, and as farmers, gardeners, and priests continue to do.

 

My vegetable seeds are ordered and lying on the kitchen table. I have slowly discovered that in order for them to grow, they have to come out of the packet. That is the tricky part.

 

Easter is coming. Love is coming. Love is a fruit which comes for free.

 

For now, the hard part is to open up my heart, like a seed packet. Pay attention, trust, be here.

 

This is Lent: an old word for spring. Watch, wait. Fast. Forty days to cultivate my heart; to wait; maybe this year, I may even be ready? I doubt it: I never am. But I love to wait in the quiet.

 

Love will come. Whether I’m ready or not, so long as I am open – and sometimes even when I am not. Nothing in the world can get in the way of God’s Love.

 

Reverend Canon Simon Mackenzie, Lochgilphead Scottish Episcopal Church.