Story - Winter to Spring, Christmas towards Easter.

The photos of the JCGarden portray it all - a steady progression of earth's seasons, from Winter to Spring with the promise of Summer to come. And the science of creation's story reveals Gods' hand in ordering the cycle of life: from the dormancy of winter towards the promise of Spring and eventually back again. Rest, growth, fruit, harvest, rest!

This year's sanctuary Christmas tree, standing sentinel-like in the middle of the JCGarden as it changes with the seasons, helps link science with faith. The Jerusalem Cross Garden "orders" our daily lives in the ways of God - acts of devotion, acts of worship, acts of compassion and acts of justice; the Christmas tree helps cycle us through the Savior's story each year of advent, Christmas, epiphany, Lent, Easter, Pentecost and Kingdomtide.

Yesterday the Christmas tree was removed as we prepared the JCGarden for planting. The tree had its' branches lopped of, preparing it for its' transformation into the Aldersgate Staff. Seeds will now be planted in the fertile soil of the Jerusalem Cross during this Spring season. There they will die and bring forth much, even as this Easter season of the Savior's story celebrates the truth that dying we too might live. And the Christmas tree, now transforming into the Aldersgate Staff, helping us to enact our faith story in its' metamorphosis, awaits to lead us into the rest of The Story - of entering the darknesses of the world where many are trapped in perpetual winter, to proclaim the Christmas truth (Advent/Christmas), "Behold, your Light has come," by living resurrection (Easter) lives pentecostally (Pentecost) empowered.

And best of all, soon the JCGarden will see the shoots of young plants break the surface of the soil...even as the green shoots of our faith, watered by the "Christian conversation" found through lectionary group participation, grow into the sunlight and warmth of God's love.

Aldersgate Staff

Looked at from any angle it's a poor excuse for a tree! But this is no ordinary dead Christmas tree standing in the middle of the Jerusalem Cross Garden. Soon it won't be a tree at all, but the Aldersgate Staff. And it will hang proudly on the CommonGround Gallery wall until Pentecost as a reminder that we are a people called into an active and empowered service. Where will it lead us this year as a congregation in service of God?

Already some exciting ideas are being shared. A visit to the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) Depot in Salt lake City to help assemble disaster relief packages is one of them. Starting a regular meal for those of our valley struggling to make ends meet during these difficult economic times is another.

One thing we should not do is rush our decision. Rather we should "wait on the Lord," seeking God's direction and each others council as we choose a project. On Pentecost Sunday perhaps we will be ready. As the post-Aldersgate John Wesley, empowered by the witness of the Holy Spirit, did mighty things for God and helped change peoples lives by establishing the Methodist movement, perhaps we too as seeds in God's soil can be instruments to "make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world."

Such is Jerusalem Cross gardening - "of soil and soul." Being reminded of the importance of the four acts of devotion, worship, compassion and justice. And the Aldersgate Staff, made from each year's sanctuary Christmas tree, can remind us annually that we are a pilgrim people who are called to "go," but who work best when the Holy Spirit is our guide.

Dying Alongside the Seeds We Plant

The Jerusalem Cross Garden has lain dormant all of winter. Nothing has been planted, nothing harvested. There has been nothing even to look at in a normally lush garden that has reverted to being a side yard of the church, frigidly white and singularly uninteresting. (How often that can be a reflection of the state of our souls).

That is until the sanctuary Christmas tree (picture left) was placed there after Christmas to, epiphany-style, announce to the world that the Light of the World, having been born, was now moving out to shine in the world.

But still, the garden was bleak and uninteresting.

All that is about to change in our little village. With the winter snows quickly receding - earlier than usual this year - my walks with a wide ranging Gill (my Brittany Spaniel) have taken me back to the forested trails of Ski Hill. The little yellow Avalanche Lilies, the first to bloom each year, are beginning to color the forest-litter of pine needles and mulch. And as I hike with Spring in my steps, the call of the returning songbird is joined in my mind by the signature song of our valley, soon to be sung each summer night during Summer Theater. We all know it well. And it speaks of Spring...of life returning to our mountains and valleys.

The hills are alive with the sound of music. With songs they have sung for thousand years. The hills fill my heart with the sound of music. My heart wants to sing every song it hears.

My heart wants to beat like the wings of a bird that rise from the lake to the trees.
My heart wants to sigh like a chime that flies, from a church on a breeze.
To laugh like the brook as it trips and falls over stones on its way.
To sing through the night like a Lark that is learning to play.

I go to the hills when my heart is lonely.
I know I will hear what I've heard before.
My heart will be blessed with the sound of music.
And I'll sing once more.

As a Spring rite, soon we'll have "Maria" celebrate this song in worship one Sunday. And her singing of it will be an invitation for us to engage again with the Christ who plays in creation - the forests, the mountains, the rivers, our gardens - and invites us to do likewise. We will prepare the Jerusalem Cross Garden beds. We will sow the Spring wheat, from which will come our communion bread come Harvest Sunday 2010. We will plant the seed starts to give our growing season an early beginning. And in doing so we will engage the Lenten truth, as Good Friday approaches, that a seed, to do any good at all, must give up its' life.

Perhaps our souls can be engaged yet again as we seek to be inspired by the Jerusalem Cross, calling us to die to self alongside the seeds we plant and regularly find ways to do acts of compassion and acts of justice, even as we do acts of devotion and worship.