A Feast in Lent

We live in East Antrim. This means that we seem to avoid the worst excesses of harsh winter weather. We are close to the sea, and our snow melts quickly; we are not too high, so we have not been cut off; we have thankfully hitherto been spared all power cuts; everything we need is within plodding distance.

We've just been watching the News and it's a bleak world out there for our farmers, and our elderly (my parents remain housebound on the top of their hill), and our businesses. So I hesitate to tell you what I am thinking increasingly this week, on my journey to Easter.

What doesn't quite manage to loosen its grip is a glimmer of joy, unashamed and unabashed, that has been growing here. It's the experience of letting go within the momentum of a great and sure hope. It's all the Feasts that we've been thinking about this year. Feasting like gluttons, devouring. Gobbling up all these good things that we can learn now in Lent and beyond.

I can't remember the last time I have enjoyed anything as much as the puzzle piecing of McPhee. I love it. I absolutely adore it with a passion. It's wholly tasteless, and will mean nothing to anyone who looks at it, unless they're us, but it fills me with chuckling delight. I thought about that yesterday in church. All that joy at seeing Jesus arrive in Jerusalem; joy that would sour. I thought how it would be to welcome Jesus everyday into here, and not have it sour. To feast wholly on Him, and fast from all that would interrupt the gluttony. To enjoy and savour and live, live, live!