Rev. Valarie Englert, Senior Pastor
As I write this on Thursday afternoon, the sun is peeking out and icicles are growing longer and longer, dripping as they grow.
A thaw is coming – and a most welcome one.
After a week of being frozen in, many without power, some of us suffering tremendous loss, it is a glorious blessing to see sunlight, and to look forward to a warmer week ahead.
Our whole state – many states – have been knotted up with the cold.
No mail. Bare shelves at the grocery store (the few that have been open).
Slick roads. Canceled vaccination appointments.
Boil water orders. Burst pipes. Blackouts.
And a pandemic on top of all that.
A tightly woven knot of severe external circumstances.
As a result, many of us are experiencing tightly woven “knots” in our insides as well.
Worry. Concern. Anxiety.
A sense of feeling helpless in the face of such circumstances.
Fear that we might just unravel and come undone.
Enter in the season of Lent – a gift of a season in which we can let the unraveling begin in the light of God’s grace.
We can pick at our “inner knots,” so to speak – the bundle of emotions, past traumas, failures – and allow a bit of light in, and let the Holy Spirit pick at those knots with us.
When that “Gracelight” enters in, we can give ourselves over to the assurance that we are children of God, blessed by the Spirit.
Those inner knots can take up a lot of space and energy within us; they are good at blocking that Gracelight out.
When the light begins to seep in, we can move more assuredly into the deep knowledge that as we walk the road to the Cross with Jesus, we will emerge on the other side in the light of Resurrection.
Completely unraveled from who and what we were before, and forged into a new people from whom Love and Gracelight shine forth.
Let the unraveling begin.
First Reflections 