2014-060 Verdant

We should see green this month. But not today.

March is about promises, the promise of Spring, the promise of green grass and bright flowers and birds and squirrels and mosquitoes. The seasons roll through one after another. You can count on it.

As long as the earth endures,
seedtime and harvest,
cold and heat,
summer and winter,
day and night
will never cease.

So said God to Noah when Noah came out of the great barge after the flood and offered up sacrifices to the Lord his God.

It's a promise; you can count on Spring because you can count on me.

Next Wednesday is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent. On Ash Wednesday Christians have for centuries received the sign of ashes on their forehead as a symbol of repentance and contrition as we enter this season of somber reflection. Lent is the flip side of Advent. It looks forward to the death and resurrection of Jesus just as Advent looks forward to his birth. It is about the blood on the Christmas tree. It is about promises kept and promises to be kept, both now and at the end of all things.

For there is another tree promised.

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. Apocalypse of John 22:1,2

That will be a verdant Spring to write home about. Except that we will already be home.

You can count on it.

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I have two project for March. The first is Amanda May's #writealm prompt-a-day challenge at writealm.com/march-prompt-a-da…. The second comes from Marketta Gregory twitter.com/MarkettaGregory author of Simply Faithful, a religion column that appears in the Rochester (NY) Democrat and Chronicle. A few days ago she tweeted me and some others, "I want folks to take pictures of where they #seeGod during Lent. You in?" I am going to try to do the two projects together. We will see how that goes.

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Today's prompt from writealm.com/march-prompt-a-da…