Dear Fremont Family:
Did you know that the season of Lent is directly related to the larger planetary pattern of the lengthening of days in the Northern Hemisphere? The very word Lent comes from the old English word, “lencten,” meaning “spring” or “lengthen” and corresponds with the time of year leading up to the vernal equinox (March 20). In other words, Lent is both a spiritual and a cosmological season where we prepare for new beginnings.
Every year, I delight in the earth coming back to life. One of the first signs of Spring is always the crocus flower pushing up through the ground, and right now, they are doing so in especially large clusters in Wilshire Park! The crocus and the daffodil and the snowdrops are some of the very first reminders that life is about to spring forth from the ground in great measure and that all of creation (humans included) is patterned after renewal.
I am also reminded that some years we need renewal more than others. The crocus flowers pictured above are actually from a photograph that I took in January of 2020. I distinctly remember how, at the time in the midst of the global pandemic, my soul was cast down within me (Psalm 42:5), and it was the beauty of Spring that brought me incredible comfort. Sometimes we can forget that we have been through difficult times before. We can forget that the dark days of “winters” past have lifted, and we have been changed as a result. I think about our life at Fremont since 2020, how we have come back to life in inordinately beautiful ways that we never could have imagined at the time, and it makes me wonder about what new life will yet spring forth in us now.
As the seasons come and go, we can remember that God is with us through it all, and we need not be afraid.
Grace and peace,
Erin
