Living Lent

As I sit here at my morning prayer, a gray squirrel is shivering on the fence, sparrows are foraging in the feeder for seeds and “Tyler’s tree” stands patiently, gradually  receiving the sap that the sun is drawing through its twigs and branches. All are waiting for spring.

I, too, look forward to spring; to brighter days and warmer breezes, to open windows and joyous bird song, to the freedom to shed layers of winter insulation and walk outside in shirt sleeves.

This is the Lenten season: a time of endurance, the opportunity to practice patience. Patience takes several forms. The shivering squirrel is a symbol of waiting with resignation and reluctance. There is a resistance to the inevitable time that must pass, but all the resistance in the world will not speed up or slow down that which must be.

The sparrows, when they are finished with breakfast, fly off to find each other, mate and build their nests. Indeed the squirrels too are engaged in this important business when they are not shivering. The birds use this time of waiting to be productive and anticipate that for which they long.

Tyler’s tree simply waits with outstretched branches and receives each moment as gift.

How are you spending your anticipation of spring this year? Perhaps you have had it with winter (Haven’t we all?) and are simply waiting in grudging resignation for spring. Or you may be ignoring the gift of this time and keeping busy with the thousand things that are always there to be done. The hardest wait we can experience is the one that the trees and bushes assume: just being in the time, just being in the space that God gives in each moment.

This is the season of anticipation, our Lenten time of opening ourselves to new life.

May your lent be full of newness and growth.