Just a few adventurous or foolhardy (or just plain hardy) buds around Dundee, but we’re a bit higher in elevation than here. There are beginning traces of yellow in Watkins Glen when I drove through, but Seneca Lake is a lot colder even than Cayuga, so it’s a bit behind. But coming into Ithaca is reassuring these last couple of days. On the warm hillsides and in the valley, forsythia and other flowers are beginning to bloom. But coming up the hill to the church I’ve noticed that while forsythia are well established at the bottom of my commute, they get thinner as I drive up the elevation, not so many a third of the way up, not many at all at the top, until the parking lot shows more promise than actuality!
Spring, like a lot of things, takes a while to make its way up the hill or south to north.
Easter’s new life takes a while to make its way through human life, with the bands of newness inching their way up the elevations. This is true on the huge, cosmic level, for we just have to look at the news to see evil and death have not relinquished the earth. But still the little blooms of Christianity and other religious perspectives keep popping up, sometimes like crocus through the snow or forsythia in the sleet. It is true on the individual level when we and those we care about cope despite bad things happening and sickness and the reverses of life. Forsythia is a pretty tough plant even though its blossoms are fragile. And it is true on the congregational level. The little flowerets of the future of this congregation are just starting to make their presence know as slightly swelling buds. Clearly, there is a lot of work ahead for the Search Committee— Patricia, Monica, Ray, Tove, George, Cindy, Bob, and Elizabeth— who have just started meeting, but we can be absolutely sure that even if it seems perhaps too slowly, their work will blossom. The long delay in spring’s arrival and the creeping progress of forsythia blooms up the heights give us a parable of waiting for the slow and steady progress to bust out in full bloom. And anyone who is used to waiting for spring in Ithaca knows it will take longer than we want, but wow, how nice it is when it arrives. So I’d like to remind you to be as patient with the process as you are with forsythia and tulips. If we can tough out “Spring” 2014, FCC can handle any search process, right?
Come join us Sunday as we commission our Search Committee and rejoice in the bright flowering of resurrection, of spring in our souls, and of our faith in the life to come!
In Christ,
David
Texts For Sunday Worship:
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