Dear Friends
February 27th. Three weeks from today is the first day of spring! Two weeks from today we will “spring forward” by setting our clocks ahead one hour at bedtime. And so today, on his feast day, I wanted to share a poem by Anglican priest and poet, George Herbert. It not only anticipates spring. For me, when read carefully, the words have extra power because of the pandemic, especially for the all the families and friends of the 500,000 who lost their lives. (What is that total number?)
A year ago, there was so much mystery and uncertainty about a new virus (which seemed to suddenly appeared from nowhere) that I cannot remember marking the first day of spring.
This year, while there is still so much to learn. prepare for and wonder about, these words can add to our collective hope---that the cloud will slowly, gradually be lifted to reveal a new world we can continue to enjoy and care for.
May that not only be our hope but our prayer, reflected in our actions.
John
This 17th century poem requires careful reading, but hopefully some of the phrases will pop out and reflect some things we are experiencing today:
THE FLOWER by George Herbert 1593-1633
How fresh, O Lord, how sweet and clean
Are Thy returns! Even as the flowers in
spring,
To which, besides their own demean,
The late-past frosts tributes of
pleasure bring.
Grief melts away
Like snow in May,
As if there were no such cold thing.
Who would have thought my shrivel’d heart
Could have recover’d greenness? It was
gone
Quite underground, as flowers depart
To see their mother-root, when they have
blown;
Where they together
All the hard weather,
Dead to the world, keep house unknown.
These are Thy wonders, Lord of power,
Killing and quick’ning, bringing down to
hell
And up to heaven in an hour;
Making a chiming of a passing-bell.
We say amiss
This or that is;
Thy word is all, if we could spell.
Oh, that I once past changing were,
Fast in Thy paradise, where no flower
can wither!
Many a spring I shoot up fair,
Off’ring at heaven, growing and groaning
thither;
Nor doth my flower
Want a spring shower,
My sins and I joining together.
But while I grow in a straight line,
Still upwards bent, as if heav’n were
mine own,
Thy anger comes, and I decline.
What frost to that? What pole is not the zone
Where all things burn,
When Thou dost turn,
And the least frown of Thine is shown?
And now in age I bud again;
After so many deaths I love and write;
I once more smell the dew and rain,
And relish versing. O my only Light,
It cannot be
That I am he
On whom Thy tempests fell all night.
These are Thy wonders, Lord of love,
To make us see we are but flowers that
glide;
Which when we once can find and prove,
Thou hast a garden for us where to bide.
Who would be more,
Swelling through store,
Forfeit their paradise by their pride.
