As we continue to make our way through Lent, our days in this part of the world are still dark and our longing for late sunsets and long, bright evenings is increasing. Despite the flowering of the snowdrops and the early daffodils, our gardens are still, for the most part, bereft of colour. The longing in our hearts for light and signs of new life increases, aptly described by Jessica Powers in one of her poems –
“I am waiting for a green shoot.
Joy waits with me and I can feel its seepage into my day and night.
I think of the marvellous flower that is to come
and how the light will hover over it.
Now and again though, the message is blurred
by brief uncertainties.”
As we wait in the midst of life’s uncertainties for that green shoot to flower in our hearts, we can look forward to the great mystery and joy at the centre of our Christian faith – the Lord is risen. Soon we will be waiting at the empty tomb of our lives today. When we find ourselves during the Easter Vigil entering the church with a lighted candle, we will remember that this is the light which “darkness cannot overpower”.
Can we trust and enter into the mystery of this? Or will we plunge into fear, distrust and unbelief? After the days of Lent, will we only experience a sense of loss? It is here that we will experience Trasna, the crossroad that challenges and calls us to choose the ancient path, to cross over and through the empty tomb – to believe, to recognise and to trust, “God is here.”
In one of his inspiring reflections, Fr Richard Rohr shared an experience of United Church of Christ minister, Otis Moss III. In the midst of his church receiving violent threats, Minister Otis heard sounds in the house late one night and feared that there was an intruder. To his surprise what he found was his six-year-old daughter dancing in the dark. He could sense that her movements were so jubilant, so free of worry or fear. And he thought, “The darkness is all around her but she’s dancing.”
She taught him that even in the darkest night, when we are afraid, when we see no light at all, the light IS still there. By dancing in the dark, by doing one of the things she most loved, his daughter was making her own light. She was living the words of the psalm, “You have turned my mourning into dancing.” (Psalm 30)
Can we find ways to allow our Risen Lord to turn our mourning into dancing?
Sr Ann Gray