At our March worship gathering we explored the synchronicity between the church season of Lent (which means to lengthen) and the Spring Equinox when the balance of daylight tips to longer days.

Lent is 40 days for waking up from winter’s ‘death’ to spring’s ‘resurrection.’ 40 days for wandering in the wilderness like the Israelites, slowing down and moving at the pace of our soul so we can better listen to and meet God. 

We are living in a time of chaos and events that cause a lot of uncertainty and stress. How can we use this season of Lent to wake up to and walk in life-giving light and love, anchoring us through unsettling times?

This is what the Lord says:
“Stand at the crossroads and look;
ask for the ancient paths,
ask where the good way is, and walk in it,
and you will find rest for your souls.”
— Jeremiah 6:16
​
This month, as you find yourself wandering outdoors, ask yourself these questions: 

• What do you notice waking up?
• What wants you to slow down and notice/listen?
• Where/how is God showing up?
• What does your soul need in order to find rest? 
• How can you walk in the good way?

Our February theme invites us to reflect on the kinds of love that we and our world need at this time. We were not able to meet together in person due to a winter storm warning, but these are the readings and reflection questions we would have used. I hope you can take some time to go on your own self-guided forest church this month!

In a time of upheaval and uncertainty, how do we let love be our guide? This month we are faced with hearts, flowers, and chocolate, with poetry and cards to celebrate romantic love. But love is also relentless, fearless, courageous, bold, inclusive, generous, honest, joyful, wholehearted.
In a time of upheaval and uncertainty, how do we let love be our guide? This month we are faced with hearts, flowers, and chocolate, with poetry and cards to celebrate romantic love. But love is also relentless, fearless, courageous, bold, inclusive, generous, honest, joyful, wholehearted. How would you describe the love that you need to see in the world today?

Gathering & Grounding - Pause for a moment to ground yourself where you are. Take some deep breaths, look around, listen, feel the air and snow on your skin. Tune into a sense of the sacred presence with you.

Readings & Reflections - take these readings onto the land with you:
“Love is the greatest force in the universe. It is the heartbeat of the moral cosmos.” Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

“Love does not rejoice in wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth.  It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” 1 Corinthians 13: 6-7  

For further reading, you can look at Dianna Butler Bass's Substack post titled Love Relentlessly.

Wandering & Wondering - as you wander, or sit cozily indoors, consider these questions: 

• What message of love do you need to hear today?
• What kind of love do you think the world (or a specific being you encounter today) needs right now?
• What kind of love do you think the world (or a specific being you encounter today) can offer you?
• What examples of love do you observe happening around you, in both human ways and more-than-human ways?​

Winter's joy comes in fluffy snow
brightening the drab landscape,
pillowy soft to catch my falling body,
sculptable magic inspiring creativity,
insulating life and promise.

Joy comes in howling winds
and stormy weather that shuts
down roads, schools, meetings,
creating space to curl up at home
and the joy of missing out.

Joy comes in the persistent
song of a cardinal in February,
perched high atop a bare tree,
brilliant red against brilliant blue,
singing for love and life.

Joy comes in remembering 
we are enough in who we are today.
we are not our labours.
We are not our achievements.
We are deep, strong, resilient, connected.
We are made for joy.

​- Wendy Janzen

This is my found poetry based on a quote I shared in our February newsletter. Here is the full quote, followed by the poem I created.

"Once we stop wishing it were summer, winter can be a glorious season in which the world takes on a sparse beauty... It's a time for reflection and recuperation, for slow replenishment, for putting your house in order.
Doing those deeply unfashionable things--slowing down, letting your spare time expand, getting enough sleep, resting--is a radical act now, but it is essential."
(Katherine May, in Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times)

My poem:
Slow down.
Stop wishing it were summer.
Winter be a glorious season
the world a sparse beauty.

Time for reflection, recuperation,
slow replenishment.

Do deeply unfashionable things
let spare time expand
get enough sleep.
Rest is a radical act.

​- Wendy Janzen

We gathered along the banks of our beloved Laurel Creek in the snowy sub-zero temperatures of January. This poem invited us into reflecting on the mind of winter, and we contemplated the similarities with the invitation in Philippians 2:5-7 to 'adopt the mind of Christ.' What do you think? What might you discover if you see the trees, creek, or creatures here on their terms rather than ours?  What might God want you do learn by regarding winter? 

Due Regard by Wallace Stevens.

One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing themself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is. 

(Inspired by a prompt from Pádraig Ó Tuama)

I believe in breath, and sunrises,
in getting handwritten letters in the mail,
in memory and imagination.

I believe in the companionship of trees,
in crows roosting, in the sound of 
water flowing over rocks.

I believe in spring melt, abundance,
colours, texture, silence, and sweetness. 
In candlelight and darkness.

I believe in vastness. In expansive
living skies. In dense fog, shadow, and what 
I cannot see beneath my feet. In gravity.
​
With absolute certainty and
absolute uncertainty, I believe
​in solace and wonder, in poetry, in God.

- Wendy Janzen

Maybe what we need isn't self-care.
Maybe what we truly need is
grounding, connection, and
entanglement with all that is.
We are not created for
independence or self-reliance.

Maybe we need to open our being
to the gift of life around us, and
remember we are not alone.
We are light and love from others
and for others, our souls nourished
by touch, reaching out in need,
receiving the goodness of 
ordinary beauty
seeping through the cracks.

Celebrate the sun shining on your face, 
water wetting your lips,
gravity hugging you close to the earth,
air filling your lungs,
honey sweetening your tongue,
birds cheering your spirit,
nighttime welcoming your rest,
friends and family surrounding you,
the Divine Presence renewing
and enlivening your spirit.

​-Wendy Janzen

​Our November gathering invited us into Lament. Chip read Romans 8:22-28 from the First Nations Version of the Bible, which includes these words:

"It is plain to see that all creation is still groaning in pain like a mother giving birth. And even we who have first tasted of the Spirit are groaning on the inside...
Spirit helps us in our weakness, for our prayers are often empty words, but Creator’s own Spirit groans deep within us, without words..."

Wendy shared a quoted from Hillarie Maddox, from her substack Black Girl Country Living, Oct. 16, titled "Feeling the Earth in Our Bodies" and sent us into our wandering time with this invitation: 

As we wander today, I invite you to pay attention and tune in to signs of distress, woundedness, loss, or stress the Earth is exhibiting here in this place. Tune in, as well, to similar things you are feeling or suppressing in your body. What do the earth, your body, and the Spirit want you to know today?

We ended with Chip leading us in a ritual of symbolically dropping our 'wordless prayers or groans' into the creek.