Holy Week Begins

This morning we woke to 19 degree temps and three inches of snow on the ground: a sharp reminder that spring is partly composed of winter's tail end. I am betwixt and between seasons: to get at my shovel I fought with the rakes we used on Saturday's warm afternoon, and to get at the winter coats I had to push my way through the swim bags. Snow covers the first flowers and ice holds them shut. It seems fitting on the first day of Holy Week, which itself contains contradictions of death and triumph, mourning and rejoicing. Our interim pastor, the Rev. Phil Amerson, spoke to these contradictions in his sermon yesterday, and I am including here a Wendell Berry poem that he referenced, which helps me hold the paradox.

“What hard travail God does in death!
He strives in sleep, in our despair,
And all flesh shudders underneath
The nightmare of His sepulcher.

“The earth shakes, grinding its deep stone;
All night the cold wind heaves and pries;
Creation strains sinew and bone
Against the dark door where He lies.

“The stem bent, pent in seed, grows straight
And stands. Pain breaks in song. Surprising
The merely dead, graves fill with light
Like opened eyes. He rests in rising.” – p. 25

Wendell Berry, A Timbered Choir, The Sabbath Poems 1979 - 1997