According to the weather, the day this blog appears will be one of those beautiful, palpable early spring days, when there is a sudden rush of warmth, light, sun, and promise. Lent is when these days happen, these early intimations of Easter’s life amidst the ongoing Lenten invitations to repentance and self-examination.

Putting together both aspects of the calendar—the recess-like glee of the weather, and the sometimes less than gleeful theological invitations of this time of year, you get—not a weird blend but an honoring of life’s complexity.

A quote that I recently read reminded me of this both/and. The writer, Anne Hillman, was led to make this comment after smelling the coming spring in the mud in the land where she lived.

“Once in a while we get a glimpse of something new half-seen in another person or in an event, a promise of something that wants to be born. It signals a different take on things and a manner of living it fully. Even in the midst of discouragement and fear, all of us can develop skills that will lend energy and impetus to that kind of creative possibility.”

There are two very important steps here that leap out at me, in their year-round Lenten way: A “different take on things” that presumably will require a change in behavior on my part; and “a manner of living it fully” which, to me, means no half measures in terms of birthing the new thing we have glimpsed. (Not to mention even noticing the new in someone close to me, the challenge of not ignoring what can only be “half-seen” in them.)

The Scripture passages tell us Jesus “set his face” towards Jerusalem, and went there nonetheless. The glimpses of new life we get in the spring—both inner and outer glimpses—sometime require us to set our faces, go to into pain in order to emerge on the other side.

May the warmth of this weekend soothe you, encourage you, restore you—to actively and consciously live into whatever creative possibility awaits in the weeks to come.

Special note: For a special class on finding respite amidst ongoing caretaking situations—spring moments unto themselves—please either come or tune into this Sunday’s 1:30 presentation on a powerful model of helping one another.