The Jordan River
February
– The Bleak Midwinter
"Keep your faith in beautiful things;
in the sun when it is hidden, in the Spring when it is gone." Roy R. Gibson
"Every
gardener knows that under the cloak of winter lies a miracle ... a seed waiting
to sprout, a bulb opening to the light, a bud straining to unfurl." - Barbara Winkler
“The
kingdom of God is like a mustard seed.”- Jesus
Our faith is a lot like the month of February – a
state of anticipation towards spring and the potential that lies hidden to our
eyes. Like faith it speaks to things
unseen yet hoped for.
As Christians we know that the beauty of Christmas is
fulfilled in the potential that blossoms forth in Easter. Last month we celebrated a new year and with
it a new hope that our lives could always be better. During this month we tend to get
anxious. It is cold and dreary and
everything seems really really dead! We
can’t wait for the spring! February
helps set the stage for Spring…if it was always Spring we wouldn’t feel the
sense of new life bursting forth so deeply in our souls!
Ironically during the coldest month of the year is the
month that we celebrate love!
When stuck inside from the cold we tend to look more inwardly.
It is truly a good time to reflect and
take inventory of our relationships. Our
God is a God of relationships. All of us
want to be loved, but many of us find that fostering and maintaining good
healthy loving relationships to be hard work and challenging. Valentine’s Day gives us a chance to refocus
on those things that are most important to us but tend to get lost in the
shuffle of our day to day routines – our relationships with our loved ones.
Part of being in a loving relationship is feeling
worthy of love oneself! There are many
reasons why some of us feel unworthy of love…but simply remind yourself of this
– the creator of the entire cosmos believes you are worthy of love, enough to
be called a “child of God”. If God loves
us beyond our imagination then we are certainly worthy of love…from yourself
and from others. And because God loves
us, then we can share that love with others in kind. And like the Sower in Jesus’ parables of the
seeds, you too can sow love into the world.
The paradox and true potential of
love is that it only grows when we freely give it away! Valentines’ day is a day which focuses on
that universal principle where we figuratively give our hearts away to those we
love!
The kingdom of God, like a seed, like our love, is
unseen, grows slowly and has a huge potential for change and transformation in
our lives and in the lives of those we touch. For by sowing seeds of love, we in a sense
become the living word of God. God lived
out through you and me. In this way, as Saint
Paul said, we become the body of Christ - we become the Church!
So as we strive to be more open to God and to live a
more loving life in relationship with our self and those around us, let us remember
that small seed that is living in each one of us - just waiting to burst forth
in beauty into the world. Happy
February!
Your faithful servant,
Carmen
