Earth Bound: Easter
One
of a seasonal collection of Reflections by the Rev Roger W.
Weaver
The ice was groaning with dull bass
"ka-thunks," and the sun was warming the porch suggesting all
kinds of Spring feelings. At the Ely Eucharist several people
announced the arrival of Spring; I was somewhat skeptical fearing
that high hopes can quickly be deflated with rain, sleet and wet,
blowing snow.
The landscape was particularly dull.
Brown dominated. There were brown grasses, brown bushes, brown
dirt and roadsides, and brown leaves blown around brown ground
from leafless brown tree branches. This was tamarack time. What
could be more austere than the solitary tamarack standing in the
grown muskeg with its needleless and twiggy skeletal branches
shifting in the March winds?
"Son of man, can these bones live?"
Only the spruce, cedar and pine broke through with hints of green,
and even they could only hint because the dry brown had encroached
into their evergreen fiber.
"Can these bones live?" "You know
Lord." This is gestation time! The burden of Spring weighs heavily
while waiting for just the right time. The buds are full
and beginning to soften. The pussy willows showing white are portents
of the green to come. Suddenly in the blink of an eye, in the
flash of blinding energy, in a time that we usually see only by
hindsight, the landscape will have changed, and the rush of life
will be full speed ahead.
But now I wait, kicking
my way through dried up leaves and building brush piles for a
Winter fire. I do have Easter in mind, but Easter in this country
is like the white of the pussy willows; it shows long before Spring.
Our claims of "He is risen" will be part of the chorus of groaning
ice and brown branches shifting in the winds, as we continue to
wait in full expectation for the dead to be raised again
| In 1998, Rev Weaver compiled a series of
seasonal theological reflections which he entitled Earth
Bound. This is one of a series.
Other titles in this series:
Additional online reflections written by the Rev Weaver:
- American
Widgeons, originally written 1997 for the East
Range Epistle.
- Clearing
Land, originally written 1997 for the East
Range Epistle.
- Dogs,
originally written in 1999 for the East Range Epistle
- Good
Friday and Trees, originally written in 1998
for the East Range Epistle
- Michigan
Sand, originally written in 1998 for the East
Range Epistle
- Rivers,
originally written in 1996 for the East Range Epistle.
- Skiing
Burntside, originally written 1997 for the
East Range Epistle.
- Snow
Trails, originally written 1997 for the East
Range Epistle.
- The
Singing River, originally written 1996 for the
East Range Epistle.
- Winter
Trails, originally written 1997 for the East
Range Epistle.
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