Some weeks ago, listening to BBC Songs of Praise, the hymn “Beauty for Brokenness” by Graham Kendrick triggered in me a myriad of thoughts at first centred on the word “Brokenness.” At the time we were still in the middle of the second more threatening lockdown, with the deeply emotional events of Passiontide still etched clearly in hearts and minds. ...

Now the green blade riseth from the buried grain. Wheat that in the dark earth many days has lain, love lives again, that with the dead has been; love is come again like wheat that springeth green. J.M. C. Crum (1872-1958) ©Oxford Book of Carols. For most of us, the first signs of spring this year will make a difference. ...