#justaboutclingingon

The hashtag is cribbed from @davewalker. My reaction to that was, ‘oh, thank goodness, it’s not just me!’

It’s been a long Lent. A cold Lent, a hard Lent, a Lent that didn’t stop for Sundays, that ground me down, that wore on and on.

The first two weeks were OK and I had good intentions. Things like doing a lectio divina – not every day, because I am realistic, but twice a week at least, let’s say, and not buying things in supermarkets, and not buying things I didn’t need at all, and I was doing reasonably well…

Then there were all the people: two weeks where I had to see people every day, to be interesting and polite and to talk, and then have to do it all over again in the evening, because it was a PCC meeting, or my mother was staying the night, or there was something else that meant I had to talk to people, and I never had an evening, let alone a day, to just crash; and then my brain broke and I cried at work and I know I shouldn’t have gone in in the first place.

Then I caught a cold, which put me in bed for two days (not consecutive) and has put me on limited spoons (to the extent that my reasoning goes like this: “I would like to go out for a cycle. But my front tyre needs pumping up. But pumping my tyre up will be so much effort that by the time I’ve done it I will be too tired to go out cycling. Also I have evensong tonight oh God oh God there is so much stuff to do I just can’t…”)

And they put the clocks forward an hour and I’m not sure I’m ready for Easter. Because it’s already here and I’m still tired and cold and grumpy and coughing like a blocked drain, and not feeling spiritual in the least. #everythingchanges, says the Church of England, and I am here going, really?

But new life doesn’t always come with a boom as the stone crashes down. Mostly it creeps out in tender little green shoots, or tiny sticky leaves. It is not spectacular, but it is hope, of a sort.

I went to church this morning. The last hymn was Thine be the glory and our organist played little twiddly bits between the verses, because it’s Easter. The one between the second and last verses was particularly reminiscent of another famous Handel piece. Hallelujah! it went. Hallelujah!. Then, diddly diddly diddly pom pom pom NO MORE WE DOUBT THEE…

It would not have had me on my feet (had I not been already, I mean…) But I did feel a tear prickling at the corner of an eye, and thought, oh.

I am alive, after all. Hallelujah.