'Tis Spring!

Like the good pagans we are at FPC Elizabethton, we are celebrating Spring Equinox and invite other lovers of Spring to join us at 5:30.

Easter is still a month away, but Ostara, the ancient celebration from which the word Easter is derived will be arriving right on schedule on the Spring Equinox, March 20th. The Peacemaking Committee will sponsor a celebration for Ostara as part of its Wheel of the Year series: the Solstices, Equinoxes, and the days halfway between. Meet at the church at 5:30. It will be "in progress" when spring officially arrives at 6:21 pm! There will be refreshments afterward. To contribute, you are encouraged to bring your favorite version of deviled eggs or greens for a spring salad.

Also, for Spring today I have for you Mary Oliver and the Beatles.

"Spring"

Somewhere
a black bear
has just risen from sleep
and is staring

down the mountain.
All night
in the brisk and shallow restlessness
of early spring

I think of her,
her four black fists
flicking the gravel,
her tongue

like a red fire
touching the grass,
the cold water.
There is only one question:

how to love this world.
I think of her
rising
like a black and leafy ledge

to sharpen her claws against
the silence
of the trees.
Whatever else

my life is
with its poems
and its music
and its cities,

it is also this dazzling darkness
coming
down the mountain,
breathing and tasting;

all day I think of her –
her white teeth,
her wordlessness,
her perfect love.

--Mary Oliver

And the Beatles, "Here Comes the Sun"