Normally, spring weekends are full of activity, especially here in the south where it hasn’t reached oven status yet. In Mississippi, there is the added factor of humidity, so summers are a steam bath. Hence, the incredible amount of activity in the spring. We work in our yards, plant vegetable gardens, flowers, and new shrubs, and families gather for Easter, Mother’s Day, graduations, weddings, and dance recitals. Normally.
Written one year ago in 2019, I had no idea how true these words would be in 2020. We need to gather, it is vital to our humanity. But, for a while, we have not been able to.
Garden, gather, and springtime rituals to embrace.
As families, we gather and garden, passing on our spring rituals to the next generation.
To gather is to collect, assemble, bring together parts. You have to move your physical self to a location to gather with others. During times of great upheaval and change, it is not so easy to do that, but it is still vital.
To bring a family together requires coming together and cultivating those relationships.
One day we may not be able to gather, so do it while you still can.
My own parents have been gone a long time, so I take family seriously. We have to cultivate our relationships. It is a life truth that relationships need maintenance.
A garden is a plot of ground or a container where we cultivate herbs, fruits, flower, or vegetables. We plant, water, and weed. We don’t leave it to chance or expect someone else to do it. Our families require the same focus.
Imagine the beauty of a botanical garden in spring, or open air eating and drinking places.
A garden is a good place to gather for weddings, graduation parties, or Mother’s Day.
We prune, mulch, and do the big cleanups in spring, so our outdoor areas will be enjoyable. Then we get together and celebrate to work the garden of relationships.
Both can be beautiful gardens when tended and a mess when they are not.
My outdoor garden setting has changed over the years because we moved so much, but I always have planters to green up my winter deck with evergreens. In the spring, I liberate some of those to the yard, so they don’t get pot bound and lackluster, then find something new for the deck.
It may be too hot to sit on the deck all day in summer, but spring feels like an iced tea cool breeze day for gathering outside.
Spring is the time to gather. Let’s gather as soon as we can.
Easter is coming, Resurrection Sunday for some; the spring remembrance and celebration has many names, but at its core is Jesus.
For our household, it is the weekend where we normally gather and go to church together followed by lunch as a family. Singing worship songs alongside people you love is good for the heart. Remembering how our lives were changed when we accepted Christ, and what that means is why we gather.
We do have our rituals of an Easter egg hunt, dressing up together. It is one more day to celebrate being a family and to make memories.
It is also part of our responsibility to pass on our family traditions and beliefs to the next generation, but more importantly why we believe what we believe. There is no blind following or Christian in name only that will endure.
Traditions without truth are useless, and will be as dust blown away by winds of trouble.
In our big wide world, our family is our bean patch. It is the place we teach what is right and just. Where we consider others before ourselves and leave selfishness behind.
We have a responsibility to light the way.
As we tend both our family garden and out green gardens outdoors with healthy balanced leadership, we give something beautiful to the world. A healthy family who will raise healthy generations.
Every life is precious, make sure they know it.
Gather together soon and pass on the best spring time rituals to your family.
Hebrews 10:24 and 25
24And let us consider how to spur one another on to love and good deeds. 25Let us not neglect meeting together, as some have made a habit, but let us encourage one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching.
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