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Meditation on the Word 'Spring' LEAPWhen we are out walking we sometimes have to leap over a ditch or up a bank. Or, at work, we have to change jobs or patterns of work and this may involve quite a leap. We may even find change in our church worship. It is a jump from the known to the unknown, from the well-worn to the new. It may be a leap in faith, trusting in God to hold us up and to guide us. He will go with us as we take the risk and leap, and he will show us the way in the unknown places. Silence (5 minutes). SPRINGTIMEWe find we are in a fresh green country which is being renewed by new life bursting out everywhere. There are still some familiar landmarks but even they look fresher. There is colour, sound and bright light. The words, 'the Light of Christ' in the Easter Liturgy gives everything a new look and new life. But Spring also shows up the dust and dirt and we find we have to do some spring-cleaning in ourselves so that the light can get to our darkest corners and make us wholly new. Silence (5 minutes) COILED SPRINGThis kind of spring is resilient. It returns to its original shape whenever it is pulled, or contracted. In us this spring might be thought of as the power of God. So we can be stretched by overwork, the cares of our daily lives, responding to an emergency and God restores us to our original shape. Or, we can be sat upon, diminished in some way, and He brings us back to the shape in which He made us, and in which He wants and loves us. Silence (5 minutes) SPRING OF WATERThis spring bursts out of the rocks, or from the ground beneath us and flows through the land freshening and re-vitalising as it goes. Even its sound is refreshing when we are hot and dry. It provides water to drink and to wash in. So we come to think of Jesus at the well in Samaria and his promise to give that woman, and us, 'living water'. 'Whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.' (John 4:14 NIV). Silence (5 minutes) Close with some well known words by Charles Wesley. Thou of life the Fountain art, (This exercised is based on the definitions and some of the ideas in Stephen Verney's book Into the New Age, pp.66-79). NOTE Other words will respond equally well to this method of reflection and meditation, for example, 'cross', 'grace', 'light' and 'green'.
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Collect together a candle and four pictures - a person leaping over a gap, a coiled spring, the countryside in springtime, and a waterfall or other flowing water. We are going to meditate on the word 'spring', and on how its different meanings turn up in our daily lives and in our lives as Christians.