Arise, my love, my fair one...

... for now the winter is past.

In my senior year of high school, I was selected to preach a sermon at our church’s annual youth Sunday. Quite the honor, it reflected the fact that I was considering a possible vocation to the ministry (I never went to seminary or got ordained, but I did embrace the lay vocation of being a contemplative writer).

Even though my church followed the commo…