1. Pastor’s Ponderings
Dear Ones,
I woke up this morning and snow was falling. It is a grey, wet autumn day -- the kind when it seems easier to stay snugly in the house than to go to work, when even the dog doesn’t want to go outside. But there are letters to write and emails to answer and a phone that never stops ringing and everyone else is out sick, so I gathered myself together and bundled up a bit and came into the church.
As I was standing in the lobby looking out at the rain (the snow has long since melted) I saw this tree in the yard by the garden:
It was a startling sight, so I looked a little closer.
Then I stopped and marveled at this sign of spring, blooming in the autumn rain. I don’t know if this is a second blooming of a spring dogwood or a first blooming of a tree that spent too much time in the shade. But I know the day felt brighter and the world a little more hopeful when I saw the blossoms. Its petals are stained with pink, and they are fresh and bright even though some of the leaves around them are starting to turn.
And I thought: so it is with the church, in this building and in the world: we can look and see that time is passing, and the world grows weary. Or we can look at what is before us, and see that God is bringing about something new even when we are not paying attention, even when we think it is the wrong season.
The dogwood is an early spring bloomer, a sign of resurrection and of hope after the winter. And I remembered a quote from Anne Morrow Lindbergh, who wrote, “after all, I don’t see why I am always asking for private, individual, selfish miracles when every year there are miracles like the dogwood”. The miracles that we expect, that we think would solve our private woes, can blind us to the miracles that God is bringing into being all around us.
May God grant us eyes to see, in this and every season:
In the cold and snow of winter, there’s a spring that waits to be
Unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see.
Blessings, Pastor Kimberly