Lent 2018: Life junctions

Who would have thought my shriveled heart
Could have recovered greenness? It was gone
         Quite underground; as flowers depart
To see their mother-root                      
The flower, George Herbert

Lord of life, send my roots rain.  Gerard Manley Hopkins

Faced with a decision

This lent we will look at life junctions.  Key points at which decisions are to be faced and an onward direction or inward orientation is required.  Relief is sought in a dry place (send me rain), a 'shriveled' heart returns to its 'mother-root' and recovers its greenness.  Here a question received or an action seen can act like a river that helps us, holding us as we discern and then drawing us on.  In the Gospels we see Jesus leading or showing his hearers junction after personal junction (what are you for? with me/against me? what do you really believe?).

A tug is felt.