The body
takes in and releases a long, smooth breath; with this breath, the body is set
into motion, turning, stirring from its slumber. It heaves another long sigh
as it fights wakefulness, but it is already awake, though its alarm has not yet
sounded, and the time is not yet come.
Then its eyes open, at first dreary, as the sleep is
wiped away, but quickly those windows to the soul are wide and aware, and all
the light of life can be seen in them. With every breath and stirring, its
joints and limbs creak as it shakes off the lethargy of hibernation, and as you
walk along in the doldrums of your Winter reverie, you look up to the trees and
see the first red tips at their fingers, and realize that Spring is coming.
And this Earth is a morning person; early to rise, it
blows and rustles with great energy, and its eye, once lidded with the Winter’s
pall, shines down with bright rays to drive away the lonely coldness of our
grey Winter, replacing it with an extravert's most blinding cheer.
Fitting, that this reminder of awakening should come to
you now, sitting in the sunlight on your stone bench by the river, for in a few
days, you will join the crowd in the Passion according to Saint Matthew as they
cry “Hosanna” and again as they cry “Crucify.”
Fitting, that all the beautiful, lively gifts foreshadowing
the Spring should show themselves, even as you fail your simplest fasts of
Lent, and impiously hunger after the food and drink you’ve forsworn, instead of
fixing your mind to prayer.
Fitting, not because you deserve these gifts which
foreshadow the Spring, but because, as Lent enters its darkest days, as you
veil your crosses, as you rehearse with the choir and the acolytes, when no Gloria is sung, you have this reminder: brace yourself, christian, Easter,
Spring of souls when Christ burst his prison and from three days' sleep in death rose
as the sun, is coming.
Still, as another cold front comes past, you will kneel
on your aching knees on Good Friday, your fasts again failed, and see the only
Light of sinners against the noon sky; that light, though for a time shrouded
in Winter’s pall, shall shine again on Easter, all Its fasts kept in perfect
piety, with all merit accounted to you.
And as the sun shines brightly down, student, cease your
walk, look from the buds on the trees to see that the lilies are springing
forth.
~C of A by the G of G
