I practice my Spanish grammar, rolling words over my tongue, la nieve se fundirá, la nieve se funde, la nieve se has fundido: the snow will melt, the snow is melting, the snow has melted because I wish for it to be so.

It still sprawls over hills and low slung valleys, but we who are looking see last Summer's leftovers ringing around tree bottoms and lining the roads. We see cupfuls of salt left in the streets, brought to the floor by its melting adversary. We see it because we are looking for it, and because we are discontent with leftovers of last year, because we are looking for the real thing. We don't want to get caught calling our Lord a mere gardener.

"Why are you weeping and Whom do you seek?"

Mary is me and I am she. Both of us looking desperately for some sign of life, some evidence of a promise spoken, both blinded by our expectations and what we do see. It's hard to see past the sprawling snow and the weak blades of brown grass right now. It's hard to feel Spring in the air and to not check the status of frozen, regressing river water. It's hard to see past the ratted clothes of a grounds-keeper and see the One we're looking for.

Because sometimes promises feel void, because three days feel like an eternity, and because stone tombs and winter blues feel like impossibilities.

But it doesn't change the promise--and that is what we cling to. We wait, like Mary, to hear our names with exclamation points at the end. We wait, like Mary, to hear His words and not just His voice. Because His voice feels crowded sometimes, pedestrian and plain. His voice sounds hollow sometimes, rhetorical and placating. But His words, speaking our names, this is how we know.

"Mary!"
"Rabboni!"

And we answer, in spite of it all. Because we who are looking see past.

Reposted from March 2008.