It was a warm fall day when my husband and I planted nearly 200 spring bulbs. In fact, it was All Saints Day. Taking advantage of the unseasonable temperatures, we worked to create a new bed in our backyard.
After the work was done, with the All Saints celebration on our minds, my husband and I reflected on the bulbs being buried, imagining their resurrection, as it were, come spring. It wasn’t lost on me that the newly created bed looked a lot like a newly filled grave mounded over.
Now, in the cool days of spring, we are enjoying the beautiful blooms. They’ve come forth from the dark earth, the crocuses pushing through the snow to bring their delicate buds to our attention.
Our backyard bulbs remind me of the hymn “Now the Green Blade Rises” (ELW #379), written by Anglican theologian and poet John MacLeod Campbell Crum (1872-1958). The flowering bulbs seem to sing, “Love lives again, that with the dead has been; love is come again, like wheat arising green.” The hymn’s Easter message is just what our weary souls need.
This message is excerpted from “Just what our souls need” by Linda Post Bushkofsky in the March/April 2022 Gather magazine.
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