This morning, Nancy Whitehouse and I hung these wreathes on our Pleasant Street doors to remind us of the suffering we are witnessing in the Ukraine, the suffering the war has provoked in millions of lives and the resilience of many human beings to move with grace and mercy in times of strife.
I grew up in a state that is called “The Sunflower State.” In the flat plains of Kansas not only do “amber waves of grain,” mostly wheat thrive in those fields. Kansas agriculture boasts of fields of sunflowers, corn, alfalfa, and soy beans. I feel a resonance with the sunflower of the Ukrainian people. It’s an agricultural staple for cooking oil. Indirectly, it is also a symbol of Lent when abstinence from sweets and fatty foods are replaced with the use of sunflower oil instead of trans-fats like fats from meat and milk. Now, it is a symbol of hope.
I thought of Ukrainian agricultural riches, the people who tend them, and the machines that work them when I saw a video of a Ukrainian farmer toting a broken-down Russian tank behind his tractor. Wheat has an important and even sorrowful history in Ukraine. And now, the world is full of grief to see the unprovoked destruction of buildings and fields going on right now.
Our parish is giving generously to Episcopal Relief & Development on the ground supporting the Ukrainian people directly. Thank you. We will continue to share the ERD link and contact information [HERE] with you in these mailings and in our St. Paul’s announcement bulletin. I hope you will consider giving more than once.
On a daily basis, I find myself checking on news reports, feeling helpless to do much about this violent tragedy. I’m inspired by the many people of all ages standing up against evil acts and evildoers. (Through our Tuesday Lenten conversations on Zoom, you all have helped me reframe my language to use the terms “evil acts” and “evildoers” from “evil” as a descriptor of a person.)
As we near the end of the second week in Lent, I recalled the poem I return to again and again during this holy season. It is set to a beautiful anthem written by Trinity Church Boston’s Richard Webster, Director of music and Organist. It reminds me of the meaning of the Lenten journey we take every year, war or no war and helps me return to Jesus for strength and consolation. English priest George Herbert wrote the poem, “The Dawning” in 1633.
Loved ones, we will always have “Good Friday” sorrows in our lives. But our Christian faith, even in those times of sorrow, fear, anger and worry remind us that “Thy Savior comes, and with him mirth…And with his burial linen-drie thine eyes…” We are certain that “God will wipe away every tear.”  (Rev. 7:17)

Awake sad heart, whom sorrow ever drowns;
Take up thine eyes, which feed on earth;
Unfold thy forehead gather’d into frowns:
Thy Saviour comes, and with him mirth:
    Awake, awake;
And with a thankfull heart his comforts take.
But thou dost still lament, and pine, and crie;
And feel his death, but not his victorie.

Arise sad heart; if thou dost not withstand,
Christs resurrection thine may be:
Do not by hanging down break from the hand,
Which as it riseth, raiseth thee:
         Arise, Arise;
And with his buriall-linen drie thine eyes:
Christ left his grave-clothes, that we might, when grief
Draws tears, or bloud, not want an handkerchief.