March 2022 Winter into Spring

• During March I never left the Los Angeles city limits! I'd never thought to track such a thing until in my google maps update I noticed I never left LA during October 2021, either. Fun stuff!

• March Lectionary Project on my Urban Wilderness blog

• Friday 11 March • Planning Retreat

• Saturday 12 March • Gardening Class at the Community Garden

• Sunday 13 March • Old Tyrone Entryway and Posies on Homeward Stroll

• Tuesday 22 March • Golden Poppies

• World Water Day • Tuesday 22 March • "On every side of the river is the tree of life."

• Saturday 12 March • Thursday 31 March • Tomato Plant Progression

• Carla sent some spring flowers from Tucson, Arizona. First and last squares in my header collage are from her place; here are two more.

Five Minute Friday :: Spring

• Five Minute Friday :: Spring Linkup

Arizona poet Richard Shelton's night has "morning around the edges." When you wake up at a certain hour, you notice dawn still has night around the edges. In these here parts, the astronomical season of Spring began a few days ago. Spring's early weeks have lots of winter around their edges!

Even in southern california, during winter our bodies and our spirits long for more light; by February we start seeking small signs – especially green ones – of newness from the heaven under our feet. Some of my blog readers may know flower bulbs contain everything necessary for new life—almost all the essentials. Everything expect winter. Winter's still chill is essential for bulbs to create long, deep roots that literally give bulbs power to make flowers.

Creation provides many models and equal reassurances that parallel our human lives. You see where I'm going?! Sometimes by our own intent, at times because of circumstances, quiet, still, dark times and places provide essentials that give our gifts and hearts power to engage the world in the bright, meaningful ways often called "flourishing." Yes, just as flower do!

With leftovers from winter, stars in a break of day sky, and once icy streams starting to flow, my header art is about spring promise.
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24 March • Nurture

Nurture

Here's the container garden tomato I planted at the March 12th Saturday workshop. I'm learning to nurture it so its fruit will nurture me and others once it's ripe.


Lenten Snapshots 2022

You can jump into April Fiet's Lenten Snapshots any time to post, tweet, or blog almost anywhere. All the prompts are on the First Pres Scottsbluff website. Snapshots can be any fleeting impression: photos, drawings, songs, poems, prose, lists, food.

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22 March • Wrong

Wrong

Some of us are old enough to remember all the free world [cautiously] rejoicing at the dissolution of the USSR. Putin's undeclared war on the young democracy of Ukraine is as wrong as it gets. Let's all stand with Ukraine and pray for Ukraine.

Yellow and blue is my all-time favorite color combination. I used to call myself an "Honorary Swede" (you know—wonderfully clean, spare Scandinavian design!); I've added Honorary Ukrainian. Though I haven't done a DNA test yet, everything I can find indicates my ancestors that entered the USA through Ellis Island migrated through Western Russia, Lithuania, Ukraine, and Poland. Shifting borders, and for sure I still have many relatives there. Prayers, please!

Lenten Snapshots 2022

You can jump into April Fiet's Lenten Snapshots any time; you can post or tweet or blog them almost anywhere. All the prompts are on the First Pres Scottsbluff website. Snapshots can be any fleeting impression: photos, drawings, songs, poems, prose, lists, food.

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World Water Day 2022

World Water Day 2022 • Faith and Science in Conversation

18 March • Unfolding

Unfolding

If it's static it's not alive. Plants, people, situations, cities, hopes, and ideas unfold at various rates of speed and sometimes do the opposite. Is that "refold"?
Lenten Snapshots 2022

This is the third year of April Fiet's Lenten Snapshots. You can find the prompts on the First Pres Scottsbluff website. Snapshots can be any fairly fleeting impression: photos, drawings, songs, poems, prose, lists, food—though to post food you'll need a picture. You can blog, tweet, facebook, or "other," and there's a facebook for Lenten Snapshots.

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09 March • Promise

Promise

Everyone has a physical place in measurable longitude and latitude, even if not a more-or-less permanent one. You need to interpret scripture (on the street?) where you live, but in order to do that you need to have some kind of place. For structural or other reasons, too many people around here lack a street address. Yet God promised Abraham both people and place. Land where they could settle. Many churches name themselves after their location, so it's First Church New Town, This Town United Church, Tenth Church of Your City.


Lenten Snapshots 2022

This is the third year of April Fiet's Lenten Snapshots. All the prompts are on the First Pres Scottsbluff website. Snapshots can be any fairly fleeting impression: photos, drawings, songs, poems, prose, lists, food—though to post food you'll need a picture. You can blog, tweet, facebook, or "other," and there's a facebook for Lenten Snapshots.

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06 March • Ordinary

Ordinary

We always seem to remember it's a special meal;
let's not forget it's a common, ordinary one, too.


Lenten Snapshots 2022

This is the third year I've blogged to April Fiet's Lenten Snapshots. All the prompts are on the First Pres Scottsbluff website. Snapshots can be photos, drawings, songs, poems, prose, lists, food—though to post food you'll need a picture. You can blog, tweet, facebook, or "other," and there's a facebook for Lenten Snapshots.

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05 March • Transformation

Monarch Butterfly Amidst Milkweed in West Los Angeles • Transformation

Lenten Snapshots 2022

Again this year I hope to occasionally blog to April Fiet's Lenten Snapshots. You can find all the prompts on the First Pres Scottsbluff website. Snapshots can be photos, drawings, songs, poems, prose, lists, food—though to post food you'll need a picture. You can blog, tweet, facebook, or "other," and there's a facebook for Lenten Snapshots.

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04 March • Approval

Approval

The Russian-Ukrainian Conflict is an actual War of aggression and occupation by the Russian president and his operatives with zero approval or cooperation from ordinary Russian citizens who will continue to be adversely (understatement) affected by economic sanctions the world's democratic partners and allies have placed on Russia. Like most of the rest of the world, I completely disapprove.

However…I'm in awe and I fully approve of the strength and patriotism of the Ukrainian people. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy totally rocks! Watching the European Union, USA, United Kingdom, democracies in the Southern Hemisphere, almost 100% of the free world, and now even – even – historically neutral Switzerland cooperate with sanctions, humanitarian aide, and every other possible type of support for Ukraine has my full approval. Standing With Ukraine. Praying For Ukraine.


Lenten Snapshots 2022

As I did for Lent 2020 and Lent 2021, this year I hope to occasionally blog to April Fiet's Lenten Snapshots. You can find all the prompts on the First Pres Scottsbluff website. Snapshots can be photos, drawings, songs, poems, prose, lists, food—though to post food you'll need a picture. You can blog, tweet, facebook, or "other," and there's a facebook for Lenten Snapshots.

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03 March • Perfectionism

Lenten Snapshots 2022

As I did for Lent 2020 and Lent 2021, this year I'm blogging off and on to April Fiet's Lenten Snapshots. You can find all the prompts on the First Pres Scottsbluff website. Snapshots can be photos, drawings, songs, poems, prose, lists, food—though to post food you'll need a picture. You can blog, tweet, facebook, or "other," and there's a facebook for Lenten Snapshots.


Perfectionism

To open Lent 2022, Perfect was the prompt for Ash Wednesday. With our Enlightenment heritage, contemporary Westerners often default to popular concepts and make perfect-perfectionism into a kind of behavioral, moral, and performative flawlessness. But Jesus of Nazareth's charge to his followers to be perfect [Matthew 5:48] uses the same root as teleological: to reach your goal, to become complete and fulfill God's dream for you, to "be all that you can be." That information must make many sigh with relief!

Famously for Charles Wesley, holiness, sanctification, and perfection essentially were the same. He believed humans could become perfect in this earthly life. For this Lent, for any time at all, we can claim God's command and promise (one and the same!) in Leviticus 19:2 – "You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy." The chapter then summarizes the Ten Words of the Sinai Covenant that call us to justice, righteousness, and love. That's holiness! It's perfection! it's living God's dream for us and our communities!

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