大象传媒

A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with Nadiyka Gerbish, a Ukrainian writer and podcaster

Planting Hyacinths

Good morning.

For many years, autumn has been, for me, all about the cosiness of home, watching the tender changes in nature around, and visiting book fairs. Frankfurt is a favorite. Every year, though, our conversations with the international publishers there are becoming grimmer and the questions more poignant. There are quite a few Tolkien fans among us, and the feeling we've been sharing for a while is that Mordor is getting stronger, and hope is imperiled. Exchanging the news from our own corners of the world, the current predominant language, and altering narratives, we've been checking our inner compasses, too. And the best news of all was that the arrows have still been pointing North.

As Tim, my colleague, observed solemnly in the noisy aisle of the fair, whatever the political shifts are, the suffering of the innocent is the story we must keep focusing on, reaching out to them in any way possible and planting the seeds of understanding in our own gardens even now - or now especially.

It reminded me of a 大象传媒 drama series episode about the second world war I watched many years ago. There, the field hospital is located in the forests of France. One of the female volunteers asks her family back home to send her a big box of hyacinth bulbs. She goes to the forest, makes a small garden, and plants them all. When spotted by a nurse, the girl explains: 'I just want to have something to look to during this winter.'

The winter is inevitable. But someday, it will end. And the hyacinths will bloom if we dare - and care - to plant them amidst all this chaos.
Dear Lord, please help me not to lose heart but trust in Your goodness.

Amen.