" Springtime is the land awakening. The March winds are the morning yawn. " Lewis Grizzard
I know that once we leave behind February we are turning the corner. The hardest month of Winter is over. The days are getting longer and warmer. Signs of returning life are all around. Sap has begun to rise in the trees and buds are forming. On warm days there are ladybirds all over my windowsill and outside the birds are beginning to pair up and gather nesting material. Bees are emerging and the first flowers after the initial snowdrops are opening & need pollinating. On sunny afternoons the pasture above Loseley is again like an alpine meadow in Spring.
This year March was weighted with extra significance. It marked a year on from the initial Covid 19 crisis unfolding in Europe and this was the month when we waited in expectant anticipation for the arrival of a new member of my extended family.
Sunsets at this time of year are wonderful. The timing is perfect for a beer around 6pm. I can return outside because it is just warm enough to sit out with a coat or rug.
Watching the sky fill with dusk and reflecting on the previous year I thought about how much had taken place. Nothing has changed in some ways, I am still here doing the same thing, watching the sunset with a beer in hand and yet everything has changed. It has been a turbulent year. A shocking year. A Jubilee year of rest but also one long drink from the cup of sorrows!
I was reminded of the gap year I spent in Namibia between school and University. That year marked me forever. It was lonely and yet very special. A whole year where I lived in the middle of nowhere and had no church to attend. My first time living away from my family and looking after myself. A year where I felt hidden in a secret place, refined & strengthened.
I was living in an arid grassland area, the khomas hochlands. High veldt, a landscape full of dry grass and thorn scrub, acacia trees and rocks. Huge endless horizons and vast amounts of light. I used to watch the sun go down from a certain huge bolder that I would climb. It was rather like my fallen tree outpost here at Loseley.
Although I was working with another volunteer for Project Trust & we had friends around us so we were never completely alone. Still for me, it was a year without my family and without church. No Sundays at church. No Bible studies and prayer meetings. No fellowship for a year.
This was in the days where a fax was the fastest & most incredible form of communication we had ever seen and a phonecall overseas was punishingly expensive. I relied on letters which took weeks or months to reach me for encouragement and news from home. There was no internet online community to bolster my faith. Just me and my bible and the Holy Spirit - which in the end was more than enough. Me on a rock, watching the sinking sun taint the sky blood red, sitting still, not saying a word. Being with a friend, just sharing the moment. A person I really love. Intimate. Silent. We would just have the best times together.
In this same way this past year living under Covid restrictions has marked me forever. Again it was special time, a hidden season which strengthened me and which served to reinforce my faith. We have had online church but there has been little tangible fellowship. I have watched the sunset alone but always with His company for months on end.
John Grant wrote some lines of prose which only he can explain. I don't want to put a false interpretation onto his words. But I find them comforting as I reflect on the past year. He wrote.
' This pain - It is a glacier moving through you
And carving out deep valleys
And creating spectacular landscapes
And nourishing the ground
with precious minerals and other stuff
So don't become paralysed with fear
when things seem particularly rough.'
The global pandemic and the restrictions it applied to our daily living has been like a huge glacier carving across the whole planet. A super power that dictated the shape of our civilisation. A force outside of ourselves chiselling away at our surroundings. We were unable to hold it back. Too weak to resist or control it. Undermined by the over whelming force of its strength. Humbled and broken by its advance across the earth.
Things have felt rough. Living under Covid restrictions has taken its toll.
So now that we are in early Spring I am ready to come out of my hibernation. March marks a turning point for me. We are moving out of the Covid crisis and I'm ready now for a change in season. I'm ready for deep valleys and spectacular landscapes For the precious minerals and other stuff that John talks of in his prose to nourish the ground and fuel life. A time for a new baby in the family and a fresh hopeful season.
And so it was that on a cold but sunny Monday afternoon in March my sister went into labour. She was 10 days over due. We had all been waiting anxiously for over a week.
In the morning Katharine was chatting to the man working on her fence in the garden sunshine. In the afternoon she was sitting in a birthing pool.
At 6.20pm as I was pulling my car away from Farley Green & enjoying the first flushes of Spring in the air - driving down country lanes & admiring the bleeding sunset spilling a pink tinge across the horizon. Letting the car roll gently down the hill into Albury, catching a glimpse of the slip of a new moon rising over the tall towering Jacobean chimneys. In those minutes while I was journeying from one home to another - my niece, Arabella Grace entered the world.
A Spring blossom March baby.
A BEAUTIFUL answer to PRAYER & a mark of GRACE on our family.
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