Good morning, friends. Happy Easter (yes, still Easter!) and Happy Spring (in the Northern Hemisphere). This week, we are going to be considering the season of spring (with apologies to our autumnal friends in the South!) and how it reflects life with God – probably in some familiar, some counterintuitive ways. When we think of spring [and Easter!], we think of new life bursting up from the ground. We think of seeds sprouting, leaves returning to their warming branches, baby animals following their mothers through fields. And, truly, there are many resonances here to life with God – birth, new life emerging out of the old, color springing out of a landscape that had for so long been barren… And what about the animals that have been hibernating to survive the winter? We think of this as a long nap of sorts, but for the animals involved, it is truly their only means of survival – less “restful” and more “barely-making-it-through.” Have you ever felt like that in a winter season of your life with God? Like you were lethargic, barely hanging on, just surviving till the possibility of new sources of life emerge in the next season (Are you in a winter season now?)? Imagine how it feels to reenter the world in springtime. At first, you are in slow motion, half-starved-to-death, disoriented even. But as you come out of wherever you burrowed down for the harsh season, as your skin and muscles and bones warm to the spring sunlight… perhaps you discover that you are, in fact, SO. HUNGRY. Hungry and emaciated enough after that long winter that if you don’t find sustenance soon, you actually might die. Where do you look? What are you willing to do, for food? And how does this connect with your experience of spiritual life? Have you (ever) been in what felt like a much-too-long winter, where you felt like you were starving, buried, alone? What was it like (or what would it be like) to emerge and turn to sources of nourishment? Does your deep hunger make you risk things you might not have in seasons of fullness? How does your prayer change in this kind of season change? What comes up for you, as you consider the connections between spring and *your* life with God?

Posted by Jamie Bonilla at 2021-04-12 13:39:11 UTC