I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that we go out for early morning walks, at the time of writing, we were setting off in darkness and arriving home in daylight. It is a reminder that the days are getting longer now, that this week is the first time that we have set off from home at around seven in the morning and it has been semi-daylinght. I am very easily pleased and it does my heart good knowing that the days are lengthening, I know that it happens, just the same every year, but I sometimes find the autumn quite depressing as the days get shorter and shorter, but at this time of year, I delight in the days getting longer.
I was driving to a meeting during the week and had to detour due to a road closure as is often the case in Suffolk, unfortunately my sat nav was useless and I had to guess my way through for a while, don’t ask me where I went, but somewhere on my journey through the picturesque countryside I saw a woodland with a blanket of snowdrops, it looked beautiful and gave me that feeling of optimism once again. Suddenly, the pressure of sauntering through the countryside on unfamiliar roads with a pending meeting washed away, nevertheless I was relieved when I came upon roads I knew once again.
The carpet of snodrops reminded of a day, possibly about twenty years ago when I was just starting to study for my theology degree in Manchester. We were working through a module about worship and were challenged in small groups to create a new celebration in the life of the Church to sit alongside all the other “Special Sundays” and a group of four of us came up with the idea of “Snowdrop Sunday” which we imagined being somewhere around the end of January or the beginning of February. Our idea was that the first two months of the year are always difficult, the bills for Christmas come in, some of us are dieting (yet again) to shed the addition pounds put on during the season of overindulgence, the days are short and the temperature low and Easter feels to be an eternity away.
Suddenly in the midst of all of this, a tiny white flower shoots up from the soil as a gentle reminder that there is new life once again, and the snowdrop can be a sign of hope, that better days lie ahead. Our idea for Snowdrop Sunday was to inject some hope into peoples lives. We live in extraordinary times at the beginning of 2022, and it feels good to remember Snowdrop Sunday once again, so in my personal little world I have made today Snowdrop Sunday, a celebration of the hope we have, the dark days are past, brighter days lie ahead and let us celebrate that.
Prayer:
Lord, we remember that only a few weeks ago we were talking about you as light coming into a darkened world, now we see signs of new life around us, we see you as the hope in our lives, come close to us today and instill in us a fresh hope for the future. Amen