Spring has Sprung!

It has been a beautiful week culminating with 75º on this Saturday, April 3. For all intents and purposes spring has sprung, as they say. (Have you ever wondered who “they” were?) The coming of spring is always a thing about which to become excited. The only problem is that this is South Dakota and past history tells us we can still have some pretty ugly snowstorms. ¶ The famous ice-storm of a few years ago was an April event. I was serving a church in Denver and took a week off after Easter to come back and do some yard work. Instead I spent the time sawing off branches, arranging for a tree to be removed and dealing with the aftermath of that weather event.

¶ The year my mother died I traveled with some friends to Rapid City on the first weekend in May so that I might spend some time with her. A blizzard struck which closed down the town and stranded us there until Sunday afternoon when we had to beat a path back to Sioux Falls so we could teach the next day. We did have to wait until the Interstate Highway reopened. ¶ It is not considered safe to plant in this part of the world until Mothers’ Day. Even then it’s risky.

¶ Still, it is wonderful to smell the fresh air and feel the sunshine and imagine how things will be in a few weeks. The evidence is right before us. My neighbor’s two trees next to my property are ready to pop. One is a maple and the other a dirty, nasty aspen with ten million hairy seed pods (or whatever they are) ready to clog my air conditioner, spread all over the yard, and cause endless sneezes as they spread far and wide. ¶ The daffodils are preparing to herald forth spring. The hollyhocks are beginning to show new leaves. There are tiny yellow flowers on the creeping thyme. All signs of the beginning of new life. ¶ We celebrate that in church tonight with the Great Vigil of Easter. Today is a quiet day known as the Holy and Great Sabbath in the Orthodox tradition. The Orthodox won’t be celebrating that today because their Easter doesn’t occur until the first weekend of next month. ¶ Some years we are celebrating Easter on the same day. Many years we are not. Going back in time this all boils down to a difference in the way

the Christian Easter is determined. The Western Churches celebrate Easter on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the first day of spring. The Eastern Churches use the same formula but stipulate that it has to be after Passover. Often times the western church is celebrating Easter while our Jewish siblings are celebrating Passover. That never happens in the Eastern Church. ¶ All that is happening out in nature reminds us of this Easter event. New life is showing up all the time. Things that looked dead a few weeks ago are sending up new green shoots. There is a lovely Easter hymn that sounds very ancient but in reality is fairly recent: “Now the green blade riseth from the buried grain, wheat that in dark earth many days has lain; love lives again, that with the dead has been: Love is come again like wheat that springeth green.”

¶ I just received a phone call from the son of a friend, an old, old friend. I think I’ve know this friend for more than 60 years. She is currently in hospital trying to recover from surgery with several other maladies assaulting her frail frame. The fourth stanza of that aforementioned hymn might well be my prayer tonight: “When our hearts are wintry, grieving, or in pain, Thy touch can call us back to life again, fields of our hearts that dead and bare have been: Love is come again like wheat that springeth green.” ¶ This Holy Week has been a wonderfully quiet and reflective time. I’ve felt well, engaged in some exercise (not enough!) and enjoyed the time to think, and pray, and read. Thank you for reading, for praying, for thinking about me. I treasure all of you. Another chemo-free week next week. It seems a little strange not having been in a waiting room for an entire week, strange but pleasant. I hope you have a blessed Easter.