There comes a time in winter when the need to see green things and color cannot be denied. The white and gray of winter days, no matter how beautiful in its own right, can become mind and spirit numbing as well as flesh freezing. Though the actual temperatures can get to us and cause us to want to hibernate, I think it might be the monotony of a colorless view of life around us that can send us screaming to places south if we are privileged to do so or at least to the florist’s for a bit of relief. We have reached, I believe, that time in winter.

Over the last few weeks I have purchased, first one and then a second, bulb garden. These little pots of green that promise so much more are some of the best medicine for the winter doldrums. With a little bit of water and any sunlight that can be found, they provide a daily dose of hope and green and, eventually, color. To watch their daily progress is like watching a baby roll over, finds its way to crawling, then to pulling itself up and finally taking a first step. With each move along the path I want to clap my hands together with praise and affirmation:”Good job! Good job!”

This is where we are. And like the landscape around us most of us are also very tired of the layers of clothes we have been putting on for months. Tired of their blacks and grays and browns. I told a friend that what I really want is a school uniform so I do not have to think about what combination of drab, winter clothes I will throw on. Again, a thought of pure privilege and I know it is so and yet I confess to thinking it. It is fairly easy to take the words of the scriptures to heart…..do not worry about what you will wear….because….I am considering the lilies and waiting for their arrival.

Sometimes our deep desire for color and green finds an extension in giving that gift to others which is what happened to me this past Sunday. I came into my office after worship and found a tall, white garbage bag on my desk. Nestled inside was a large pot of unbloomed daffodils someone had forced through the winter. A gift of green with the hope of color. This pot sits now waiting to surprise me with its next steps. Though the gift-giver left no message, I think I know who who the anonymous giver is. Someone of like-minded need.

One of the gifts of Lent is that it comes to those of us in the northern climes in these days of winter when we are longing….longing…for newness, for what might be. We are able to take the daily steps toward something that is not yet visible to us. “Above all, trust in the slow work of God” ……says Pierre Teilard de Chardin, SJ. This is what we are doing in these long, cold and often dark days of Lent. We are trusting that some new brightness will come into our lives and show us, once again, the possibility of it all. It is slow work and often invisible work and yet it is happening none-the-less.

But, like the act of placing a bulb garden in our midst, sometimes we need to create touchstones that allow us to walk with intention in this slow work. The clothes we wear for this work is patience, something I find personally challenging. Do you? Somehow the visual of the bulb garden is a good reminder that rarely does something of beauty and worth happen quickly, overnight. It takes time and blessed waiting and watching.

As we continue into the heart of Lent, my prayer is that this slow work will have its way with me and I will come to the celebration of Easter with a quieter, calmer heart for the possibilities placed before us with each new day. This walk toward rebirth can be a dark and colorless path. But the rewards are priceless and beautiful. The bulb garden is teaching me that.