Moravian Messenger March 2021

moravian
MARCH 2021
messenger
Spring has sprung!
Spring has to be my favourite time of year. Perhaps its because I am an Easter baby (born on Palm Sunday - but it is a moveable feast!). Spring seems to creep up on us but for me the very first signs are seen in our hedgerows and gardens with the first flowers bringing much needed colour back into our chilly, grey lives. Snowdrops are the brave pioneers, nosing through frozen ground as early as January. They are followed by other early bulbs - purple crocuses, aconites and then of course by the end of February into March, yellow daffodils and in the woodlands, celandines and violets. And probably the last of the spring flowers are the bluebells in early May. Another sign is of course birds starting to nest, singing to attract their mates. I always remember this little verse from my childhood (recited in my best 'Brooklyn' accent):
Spring has sprung, the grass is riz, I wonder where dem boidies is?
Some say the boid is on the wing. But aint that absoid,
The little wings is on the boid!
(funny the things you remember!)
Nature never ceases to amaze me as the dormant bulbs and tubers lay in the solid, hard, often frozen ground over winter. Then something wakes them and with a strength I often can't muster with a spade or fork the tiny shoots break through the soil and we get a peek of the bright green promise of Spring.
When someone asks me why do I believe in God my response is often - how can you look at a snowdrop (or for that matter any flower/animal/human) and not believe? I have many other theological reasons of course to reinforce my belief but that perfect, strong, persistent flower was no accident, it was created. It may have evolved over millions of years, but it was created. That perfect little white and green gem gives me hope; hope that
even in the darkest moments of our lives, the Autumn/Winter moments, we have the promise of Spring. In the Good Friday moments, we have the hope of Easter Sunday.
This passage sums up hope for me and embodies Spring:
25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? 28 And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these ... your heavenly
continued on page 26
Report from the youth leaders across the Moravian Worldwide Unity
(page 27-28)
Care4Clergy
(page 29)
Provincial Synod 2021
(page 31)
World Heritage Listing and the Moravian Church
(page 33)
© Image by ‘No Longer Here’ from Pixabay