The Daffodils are starting to droop a bit. The flowering trees are giving up their spectacular colors to carpet the streets and paths near my house. The Camellias remain in riotous bloom but the signs of spring have been with us for some time.

Still, the Sweet Gum tree outside my kitchen window waits. There are buds to be sure but no leaves yet. That tree has always been a late bloomer in this climate. I could be wrong, but it feels particularly late this year.

Perhaps that is because the exuberant energy and openness of previous years seems hard to find in my own spirit this year.

I seem to be weighed down by two years of Covid and the violence in Ukraine and the all too successful attempts to roll back the modest progress we have made toward Beloved Community in this country…

Spring is having a hard time blossoming in my spirit. Perhaps some of you may also be having a hard time getting to the “YES” that the season calls for.

The tenderness of finishing my ministry here in Portland is also part of this season for me. Life feels like such a mix, a balance of sadness and fulfillment, of gratitude and regret.

This is a year of “lasts” for me. Perhaps by my “last’ Easter with you I will get to Halleluiah! Perhaps the Sweet Gum will miraculously burst into green and leafy splendor in the next week. It could happen. It has happened before.

But for now I need to wait and to try to hold the energy of spring and the newness that always follows an ending as well as the sadness of that ending and the ongoing sadness in the world.

I often say that having faith is not for the faint of heart. Faith requires us to sustain hope even when hope is hard to find.

This blessing, by Jan Richardson, captures that spirit so well:

Hope nonetheless.

Hope despite.

Hope regardless.

Hope still.

Hope where we have ceased to hope.

Hope amid what threatens hope.

Hope with those who feed our hope.

Hope beyond what we had hoped.

Hope that draws us past our limits.

Hope that defies expectations.

Hope that questions what we have known.

Hope that makes a way where there is none.

Hope that takes us past our fear.

Hope that calls us into life.

Hope that holds us beyond death.

Hope that blesses those to come.

I might add,

Hope despite all the evidence to the contrary.

And act accordingly.

Blessings,

Rev. Bill