Hope

Lent, Week 5

“Does that willow tree look a little golden to you?” I asked the question while walking with two of my grandchildren on a recent March afternoon when snow still covered the ground. It wasn’t a long walk. The bitter wind and icy cold sent us back to the car before we’d gone very far along the trail. But “yes!” was their excited response before we turned back.

Even with winter hanging on like it has, this tree, growing along a mighty river, is thinking spring. Surrounded as it is by the brown, bare branches of other trees, it stands out like a lantern in a window. And the message it sends is hope.

Before they even sprout new leaves, the branches of many willow trees, especially weeping willows, turn bright yellow. Soon, the catkins appear, covering the long branches with yellow-green.

Meanwhile their cousins the pussy willows, open their buds to expose the softest flowers, inviting us to touch their gray pelts.

Willow flowers provide important nectar for as many as 150 early pollinators, who fly to them in hope when few other food sources are available.

For us humans, the willow offers a different kind of hope. Robert Frost tells us that "nature's first green is gold." The willow offers that gold, and promises the hope of green after months of darkness and cold.

The universe is fueled by hope. Every cell that has ever divided; every embryo that has ever implanted; every seed that has broken itself open to release its flower; each enters into the unknown with nothing but hope. And if we look for it, even in these fractured times, we will find it. Hope, like those golden, wand-like willow branches, may be almost hidden by the nearly constant onslaught of bad news. But our eyes are tuned to color, and will spot that gold if we let them lead. And our hearts; they are tuned to hope in the same way. If we let our hearts lead, they will find hope in this broken world. And hope will guide us to the flowering of new life.

Meditation: Like tiny bees that fly in hope to the waiting willows, may we, even in our distress, walk in hope on the path of life, knowing that Love, from which all hope springs, is calling us, and waiting. Amen.

For more information on early greening in willows:

https://www.birdsoutsidemywindow.org/2019/02/23/weeping-willows-hint-of-spring/#:~:text=February%2023%2C%202019%20Phenology%2C%20Schenley,John)

For more about pussy willow:

https://arboretum.psu.edu/about/news/spring-is-near-pussy-willow-salix-spp/#:~:text=These%20form%20on%20second%2Dyear,on%20the%20Arboretum%20Plant%20Finder!

About the importance of catkins:

https://www.lukasguides.com/catkinology/#:~:text=Catkins%20are%20especially%20important%20for,success%20when%20feeding%20around%20catkins.