Cherry Blossoms and Kazakh New Year
Dear friends,
I hope that you are well and enjoying the changing of the seasons. Having grown up mostly in Guatemala and Florida, seeing the changing of the seasons is relatively new to me. But I love it! It’s like witnessing a miracle.
I’m quickly approaching the end of my time in Baltimore! For a while, it seemed that my move to Mexico City was a long way away, but now it’s imminent. On April 1, my Oscarito and I will head out to our new home in Colonia San Rafael. So we’re doing our best to savor the early spring in Maryland.
Cherry Blossoms
Because this is my last winter in Maryland, I have been lamenting that it has been so warm this year—we didn’t get a single snowy day, which is really unusual for us. I have since learned that there’s a wonderful upside to our strange winter: the cherry blossoms will be here before I leave; they will peak March 22nd-25th.
If you’ve never had a chance to experience the cherry blossoms in the Mid-Atlantic, I highly recommend them to you—the first trees were a gift from Japan to the United States and since that time they have planted many more in the area. It’s absolutely magical, like you’re walking through a beautiful dream, and you never want to wake up. Of course, you should also bring your allergy meds, if you’re anything like me.
“I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.” Pablo Neruda
Kazakh New Year
Since I’ve known for a while that so many experiences would be my last ones in the area, I’ve been looking at my surroundings with different eyes. This year, I kept a lookout for the daffodils, which are the first flowers I usually notice as spring approaches. And I managed to see not just their pretty yellow buds popping up all around my neighborhood, but also crocus and forsythia. I’ve also been watching the hill in front of my apartment with all its vegetation—every once in a while I catch glimpses of deer with their little fawns. It’s a miracle the way everything, including us, comes back to life in the Spring.
When I lived in Kazakhstan, one of my favorite celebrations was Наурыз (Nauryz) or Kazakh (Central Asian) New Year in late March. It’s a celebration of spring—of the renewal that comes to us each year when spring arrives. For Nauryz everyone has two days off from school or work to celebrate and watch traditional dance performances and parades taking place all over the city. Everyone is involved in a frenzy of activities and in the preparation of elaborate meals.
Now we don’t really celebrate the coming of spring in the U.S. because maybe we don’t have as great of an appreciation for spring as people in Central Asia do. But they live in a pretty cold place—the winters are long and monotonous. The north/central part of the Kazakhstan is considered Southern Siberia.
The temperature hovers around zero for much of the winter, a winter that can last for more than half the year. In January, the temperature can drop anywhere between 20-40 degrees below zero and the winds are so strong and biting that they literally knock you down. So you can see why in a place with such long and harsh winters, spring is welcomed like warm chocolate chip cookies.
What’s ironic is that the annual observance of the Kazakh New Year usually falls in March, at a time when it’s still freezing cold! I have pictures of myself at celebrations of this holiday where I’m wearing about 10 layers of clothing and still look cold—in fact, I took off my hat briefly to take the picture you see above! In mid-March, there is no visible hope on the horizon that spring is anywhere near.
And that’s what I found so interesting: it’s really a celebration in faith that a restoration of nature is coming. That they will reap with joy what they’ve sown in tears through the long Siberian winter. It brings to my mind the renewing work of God in places of suffering, places of waiting, places of trouble and distress.
The arrival of spring really is miraculous!
Psalm 126
I confess that I don’t read the Bible a lot these days but when I do it’s usually the Psalms. I love the raw, unfiltered expressions of anger, distress, and despair they reflect back to us—they give us permission to talk back to God. One of my favorites is Psalm 126.
I read once that Psalm 126 is a Song of Ascents—that is, a song sung on a pilgrimage. I imagine these pilgrims traveling together and singing this song. It’s a hot and dusty road and the destination is still a long way off, and what do they sing about? We read in verses 1 and 2 that they are recalling a joyful time in their history, when the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion. It was like living a dream, they say.
Then we read on in the second half of verse 2, that this amazing restoration not only brought them joy but it even captured the attention of all the Gentile nations around them “It was said among the nations, the Lord has done great things for them.”
Can you picture them trudging along that road and sighing with nostalgia? Those were the days—God has done great things for us, they say in verse 3, and we were filled with joy.
But that was then, what about the present? It’s a reality, too. They’ve moved from that work of deliverance to yet another set of misfortunes. And having no recourse for their situation—no way to make things right themselves, they turn to the only thing they have left: prayer. We read in verse 4 their three-word prayer:
Restore our fortunes!
Actually, they don’t ask; they plead with God in the imperative to bring back the water to their parched lives. As a matter of fact, they may very well need literal water—Ancient Israel was, after all, an agricultural community. Or they might just need figurative refreshment--water for their souls. And it’s not as if they just sow with tears of frustration and sadness on one day and reap with joy the next day. The time between sowing and reaping can be long.
The sowing with tears is followed by a long period of time that requires patience and care and waiting. When will the harvest of blessing finally arrive? They know that even the summer drought of the Negev Desert is interrupted by rain, causing the desert to bloom beautifully. But when? And will God answer them as before? How can they resolve this tension between their past and present realities?
Joy Anticipated
The pilgrims in the song don’t really have an answer to these questions either but they do have a firm conclusion that brings them peace and comfort. One writer phrases this conclusion as, “This psalm is about joy remembered but also about joy anticipated.”
I discovered that commentators have a difficult time knowing how to classify this psalm. Some put it in the category of lament and some in thanksgiving. A few of them classified this psalm as a song of confidence or re-orientation to God, because though it expresses trouble or distress, it also affirms hope in God.
I used to know absolutely nothing about farming or growing things, so the notion of sowing and reaping used to be a less-than-effective metaphor for me. But about ten years ago, I visited a few vineyards in Napa Valley and had an opportunity to talk to the farmers about the process of cultivating a vineyard. As I walked around observing and taking pictures of the vines, I realized almost immediately that I picked the wrong time of year to visit—all of the vines are bare in the winter. In fact, they look like crooked brown sticks shoved into the ground (just as you see below).
If I didn’t know better, I would have thought they were all dead. But I knew better.
I had great faith for those vines. When spring came a few months later, they flowered and eventually produced grapes that became wine. One writer says that in the winter life is “…underground, in exile, where it is being repaired and restored for the newness of the spring.”
The pilgrims in Psalm 126 are a little like those vines. They seem to understand that God is scripting some newness for them. And they are as sure of it as they are of the spring that comes each year. The psalm ends with an expectation of a divine miracle: the people will return singing songs of joy and will celebrate a plentiful harvest.
I think in this time that my faith seems to be dying, it’s hopeful to remember that perhaps God is scripting something new for me. And wherever you find your faith to be, God is scripting something new for you, too. Maybe something extraordinary or maybe something ordinary and miraculous, like the spring that comes each year.
With hope,
Karen
P.S. Coming up next month—an author highlight :)