Barnstorming

Trust your bones
Trust the pull of the earth
And the earth itself
Trust the hearts of trees
The stone at the edge of the sea
And all else true

Trust that water will bear you up
Trust the moon to keep faith
With ebb and flow
Trust the leafing
The chrysalis, the seed
And every other way
Death gives birth to resurrection
~Bethany Lee, “To Keep Faith” from The Breath Between

Something of God
flows into us from the blue of the sky,
the taste of honey,
the delicious embrace of water whether cold or hot,
and even from sleep itself.
~C.S.Lewis from God in the Dock

Are caterpillars told of their impending resurrection? How in dying they will be transformed from poor earth — crawlers into creatures of the air, with exquisitely pained wings? If told, do they believe it?

Is it conceivable to them that so constricted an existence as this should burgeon into so gay and lightsome a one as a butterfly’s?
I imagine the wise old caterpillars shaking their heads — no, it can’t be; it’s a fantasy, self–deception, a dream.
Similarly, our wise ones.
Yet in the limbo between living and dying, as the night clocks tick remorselessly on, and the black sky implacably shows not one single streak or scratch of grey, I hear those words; 
I am the resurrection, and the life, and feel myself to be carried along on a great tide of joy and peace.
~Malcolm Muggeridge from Bread and Wine

Out in the rain a world is growing green,
   On half the trees quick buds are seen
       Where glued-up buds have been.
Out in the rain God’s Acre stretches green,
   Its harvest quick tho’ still unseen:
       For there the Life hath been.

If Christ hath died His brethren well may die,
   Sing in the gate of death, lay by
       This life without a sigh:
For Christ hath died and good it is to die;
   To sleep when so He lays us by,
       Then wake without a sigh.

Yea, Christ hath died, yea, Christ is risen again:
   Wherefore both life and death grow plain
       To us who wax and wane;
For Christ Who rose shall die no more again:
   Amen: till He makes all things plain
       Let us wax on and wane.
~Christina Rossetti “Easter Monday”

We look to Jesus to make things plain to us:
we watch the waxing and waning of the seasons,
of the living and dying around us,
indeed, our own waxing and waning,
living and dying.

The transformation from death to life
is everywhere we look, if we look.

The huge chestnut tree in our front yard
fills with chrysalises of metamorphosis,
from bud to green-winged butterfly leaf.

We wax on in Christ who dies for our sake.

He emerges, new and fresh, from His shroud,
we are renewed, made eternal alongside Him.

Amen and Amen.

This year’s Barnstorming Lenten theme is Ephesians 3:9:

…to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things…