It's February 2 and I know Spring is just around the corner. No, it is not what that Yankee rodent Punxsutawney Phil nor that Ontario hairy-tailed rat Wiarton Willie saw today. Who could possibly predict weather on the basis of what a myopic, eastern earth rat saw or didn't see on February 2? They would probably lie about it anyway. Out west, we rely on the one sure thing that there is to predict spring: the Western Wood-Pewee (Contopus sordidulus), a small, grey bird.
Today, in spite of snowbanks that are three-feet high, ice on the lake that is three-feet deep and a three-hour snowstorm last night, I know that spring is just around the corner because when I came home from the post office I heard "peeeweee, peeeweee, peeeweee" lilting through the bright sunny winter air. I know without a doubt that the new life of spring is just around the corner.
The plaintiff early morning cry of the Western Wood-Pewee is burned into my memory from childhood. Back then, winter came early to the mountains and we welcomed it with relish. Usually we were locked into winter by the end of October each year. We didn't have TV or the plethora of electronic "distractions" that kids have today, which meant that all our winter occupations were self-generated. Winter was the best of times and the worst of times. There was so much to do in winter: pond hockey 'til you couldn't feel your feet; snowshoe treks 'til you were spent in a pool of sweat; death-defying toboggan runs 'til you couldn't hold your water; cross-country ski marches 'til you nearly dropped off the edge of the earth.
And then, about mid-January, winter would turn real nasty, jailing us indoors with temperatures as low as 50 below Fahrenheit. That's when I can remember scratching the layers of Jack Frost's work from my single-pane bedroom window, feeling the pain of forced inactivity and wistfully wishing spring would come. Yesterday. And it would come, usually with the blast of a Chinook wind off the Rocky Mountains, instantly breaking winter's back in a single blow. The day after a Chinook, the sun would always rise warm with the morning, and seemingly from out of nowhere. Early on that first morning of winter's breaking, I would lie in bed and hear the almost indiscernible, "peeeeweeee, peeeeweeee, peeeeweeee". And even though I was only eight, and even though I could hardly hear it, and even though it was technically still winter, I knew absolutely for sure that Spring was right around the corner. Spring was so close I could almost taste it. I would lay back, close my eyes, listen to that oh-so-quiet avian first sign of spring and dream of bass fishing, pond rafting, slew swimming and a whole host of spring wildlife adventures that I couldn't wait to get into in the season of new life.
The Christian season of Lent is about to be launched as I write this essay. I have to confess that I usually struggle a lot with the season of Lent. As a kid, my best friend was Roman Catholic and Lent was the season of what he had to give up. Not being a Roman Catholic myself and being pretty much non-religious, giving up something you really liked as a display of guilt made absolutely no sense to me. Even to my eight-year-old sensitivities it seemed just an irrational ritual. I had no idea that as an eight-year-old pagan I was in agreement with the great Christian reformer John Calvin who called this religious giving-up-of-stuff before Easter "…the superstitious observance of Lent."
Yes, I have since studied my church history and learned that Lent, among Christians, was originally the period of baptismal preparation, later of public penance, finally becoming a forty-day devotional preparation for Easter, traditionally based on Jesus' wilderness fast in Mark 1:13. But you know what? That knowledge doesn't help a bit. And if you garnish Lent with Shrove Tuesday's pancake supper to rid the cupboards of leaven, and if you add to it Ash Wednesday's imposition of ashes to demonstrate serious penance, and abstain from your favorite little bit of food or drink for 40 days to demonstrate God knows what else as you prepare for Easter, Lent still seems to me to border upon ritualistic works righteousness. In its religious clothes, Lent has too much baggage.
But what happens if Lent is more like the Western Wood-Pewee? What happens if it is like lying in bed on an early, sunny, not-quite-spring morning after a frigid, long winter nightmare followed by the blast of a Chinook from the mountains and you hear the plaintiff oh-so-quiet "peeeeweeee, peeeeweeee, peeeeweeee"? And right then, you know that without a doubt new life is staring you in the face. What happens if that is Lent? What happens if it is about being sensitized to all that is going on around you, all the silliness in your own life and the nonsense in other people's lives, and all the pain and suffering and death that is the evidence of life locked in, pressed down and distorted with sin? And you say, "But wait a minute, what is that quiet sound?" Could it be the sound of God active in the silliness, and nonsense, and sin's death lock on life, working to bring out new life? Could it be that Lent is the precursor, a period of being sensitized to the quiet sound of the power of the cross to defeat all that steals life?
For me this year, thanks to the Western Wood-Pewee, Lent has become the anticipation of the great celebration of Easter. Lent has become Easter's Advent and I embrace it with relish. All around me spring is, or is about to, break in and in my innards Easter is about to wash all over my spirit. New life is in the process of birthing all around me and within me. Hallelujah! What a creator-redeemer-sustainer God!
Author's note: lent noun [Middle English lente springtime, Lent, from Old English lencten; akin to Old High German lenzin spring] (13th century): the 40 weekdays from Ash Wednesday to Easter observed by Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican and some Protestant churches as a period of penitence and fasting.
