Mar 8, 2026

“Verdandi’s Spring”

Rev. Kurt Hohmann

Verdandi’s Spring

Paying Attention

  • Spring does not shout.
    • It begins in whispers.
      • Never arrives all at once.
      • Does not arrive like a parade.
      • It does not announce itself.
    • It demands patience and close looking.
      • Nothing is obvious yet.
      • You have to know what you’re looking for.
      • Buds are barely swelling.
      • Different from the easy attention of June.
    • Spring seeps in.
      • A softer wind.
      • A longer afternoon.
      • A shift in birdsong.
    • Spring rewards the observer.
      • Paying attention to the world’s unfolding requires:
        • Practice.
        • Patience.
        • A willingness to look at what is not fully formed yet.
    • If we are not paying attention, we miss it.
      • And missing it is not neutral.
      • It changes how we live.
      • What we pay attention to shapes who we become.
  • Demeter and Persephone
    • Persephone disappears, and Demeter searches in grief.
    • The land withers into winter.
      • Because the goddess of grain is not attending to it.
    • Persephone returns, and so does Demeter’s attention.
      • Spring returns.
    • Lessons
      • Seasonal cycles.
      • Grief.
      • Persistence.
      • The idea that attention, or its absence, shapes the world.
      • The earth itself responds to attention and loss.
  • The Norns
    • At the roots of the world tree, Yggdrasil, three beings tend the Well of Wyrd.
    • Similar to the Greek Fates, but different:
      • Fate is woven and stitched in.
      • Wyrd is poured and swirled together.
    • Urðr remembers what has been.
    • Skuld considers what might be.
    • Verdandi watches what is becoming.
      • What is taking shape right now.
    • Verdandi does not reminisce or predict.
      • She observes.
      • She sees even slight ripples in the well.
        • The subtle shift in direction.
        • The way one choice alters the pattern.
      • She knows that what is becoming is not inevitable.
        • But responsive.
      • She pays attention.
  • Early Spring is Verdandi’s season.
    • Not because it has arrived.
      • But because it is arriving.
    • Buds are swelling.
    • Soil is loosening.
    • Light and warmth are returning.
    • Nothing dramatic.
    • Everything underway.
  • Tying to recent sermons
    • Resistance is Urðr: what has happened.
    • Resilience is Skuld: what may come.
    • Attention is Verdandi: what is becoming.
      • Not the past.
      • Not the future.
      • The present participle.
      • Not just “is,” but “is becoming.”
    • Verdandi’s name implies motion.
  • Process / Emergence
    • Verdandi inspires us to pay attention to:
      • What is forming right now.
      • What patterns are coalescing beneath the surface.
    • She represents the instability and possibility of the present.
  • Dichotomies
    • Past vs. future.
    • Winter vs. summer.
    • Collapse vs. renewal.
    • Verdandi reminds us that life is lived in the ongoing act of becoming.
    • Not either/or, but process theology.
      • Spring is not a date.
        • It is a process.
      • Justice is not an event.
        • It is a process.
      • Community is not static.
        • It is a process.
  • Verdandi embodies attention.
    • The reality that we are co-creating the present.
    • The present is not fixed.
      • Still pliable.
      • Not yet hardened into the past.
  • Paying attention
    • If we do not notice becoming:
      • Resistance happens too late.
      • Resilience weakens.
    • Paying attention invites us to notice:
      • The early signs of authoritarianism.
        • Before it hardens.
      • The early signs of burnout.
        • Before it collapses.
      • The early signs of hope.
        • Before it blossoms.
    • The three Norns sit at the roots of the world.
      • We cannot attend to the present without:
        • Understanding the past.
          • How did we get here?
        • Imagining the future.
          • What are we creating?
      • Verdandi watches what is becoming.
      • It is not whether change is coming.
        • It is already underway.
      • The question is whether we are paying attention while it is still becoming.

Paying Attention to the Present

  • Paying attention to current events.
    • Reading the patterns as they form.
  • Janus (Roman)
    • The two-faced god of thresholds and transitions.
      • One face watches the world’s events.
      • One watches snowdrops push through frozen ground.
      • Both gazes are necessary.
  • Simone Weil’s theology of attention
    • Attention is not concentration or effort.
      • It is receptive waiting.
      • A clearing of the self so reality can arrive.
    • She called attention the purest form of prayer.
    • Both political witness and watching crocuses become sacred practices.
  • Pagan understanding
    • Attention is reverence.
      • Watching the moon cycle.
      • Tracking solstices and equinoxes.
      • Honoring subtle shifts in the seasons.
      • Listening to the land and to our ancestors.
  • UU understanding
    • Attention is covenantal.
      • Agreeing to be present for one another.
      • Agreeing to witness suffering.
      • Agreeing to notice injustice.
      • Paying attention is how we remain in right relationship.
  • Paying attention is:
    • Less about believing something.
    • More about noticing what is.
    • A refusal to sleepwalk.
    • A refusal to become numb.
    • A refusal to look away.
    • But also:
      • A refusal to despair.
      • A refusal to miss joy.
      • A refusal to miss what nature is doing quietly.

Paying Attention in Difficult Times

  • Resistance requires strength.
  • Resilience requires endurance.
  • Both require attention.
  • Not paying attention means:
    • Being manipulated.
    • Being distracted.
    • Being overwhelmed into passivity.
  • Constant attention to crisis can erode resilience.
    • Doom-scrolling is not the same as moral clarity.
  • Attention is power.
    • What we are encouraged to focus on is not accidental.
    • Outrage competes for our nervous systems.
      • Fear keeps us reactive.
      • Distraction keeps us fragmented.
    • Awareness asks:
      • Who benefits if we are distracted?
      • Who benefits if we are exhausted?
    • Paying deliberate attention is an act of autonomy.
    • Choosing what we notice is a form of resistance.
    • Noticing beauty is not escapism.
      • It is remembering what we are fighting for.
  • Paying attention means:
    • Staying informed without being consumed.
    • Naming injustice without letting it define the whole story.
    • Refusing both apathy and panic.
    • Resistance is grounded in clear seeing.
    • Resilience requires attention to what is growing.
  • Spring becomes a spiritual anchor.
    • While systems strain and headlines flash, the Earth continues its slow renewal.
    • Seeds split open underground.
    • Sap rises in trees long before leaves appear.
    • Life prepares itself quietly.
    • Shifting attention to nature is not denial.
      • It is noticing that life persists.
    • Attention widens our field of vision beyond crisis.
  • Philosophical perspective
    • Hannah Arendt
      • Thinking is a temporary withdrawal from the world in order to return to it more clearly.
      • Solitude and observation prepare us for civic engagement rather than helping us escape from it.
  • Neurological perspective
    • Attention Restoration Theory
      • Nature restores our directed attention.
      • The kind of attention needed to engage difficult news thoughtfully.
      • Time in natural settings literally replenishes our ability to face hard things.
      • Watching birds can be a form of civic preparation—not avoidance.
  • Circles of Attention
    • Attention to Self
      • Am I exhausted?
      • Am I hardening?
      • Am I losing tenderness?
      • Resilience without inward attention becomes burnout.
    • Attention to the World
      • Injustice.
      • Policy.
      • Vulnerable neighbors.
      • Shifts in culture.
      • Resistance lives here.
    • Attention to Community
      • Who is tired?
      • Who is frightened?
      • Who is carrying too much?
      • Who is grieving?
      • Who is quietly stepping up?
      • Who needs to be invited in?
      • Who is tending something small but vital?
      • What beginnings are we overlooking because they are not dramatic?
      • Resilience grows here.
    • Attention to the Living Earth
      • Light returning.
      • Soil softening.
      • Birds reappearing.
      • Water moving again.
      • Hope is rooted here.
  • The cost of not paying attention
    • When we fail to notice:
      • Harm goes unchecked.
      • Burnout sneaks in.
      • Relationships fray.
      • Spring passes by without joy.
    • Attention keeps us in rhythm.
  • Idunn and the Apples
    • In Asgard, the gods remained young because of Idunn’s apples.
    • Through trickery and distraction, Idunn was taken away.
    • At first the gods did not notice.
    • Slowly they began to age.
      • Wrinkles formed.
      • Strength faded.
      • Energy drained.
      • Panic set in.
    • Only then did they realize what had sustained them all along.
    • They rescued Idunn.
      • The apples returned.
      • Their vitality returned.
    • The lesson remained:
      • Resilience was nearly lost—not through battle, but through inattention.
      • Resilience depends on guarding what sustains us.
      • Neglect leads to decay.
      • Restoration requires awareness and effort.
    • Questions
      • What are the “apples” in our community?
      • What quiet practices sustain us?
      • What relationships keep us resilient?
      • What signs of renewal are we failing to guard?
    • Reminder
      • Spring does not shout.
      • Neither does a basket of apples.
      • But without them, even the gods wither.
  • Finding Balance
    • Unbalanced attention:
      • Numbing
        • Too much news.
        • Doom-scrolling.
        • Despair.
      • Bypassing
        • Retreating into beauty to avoid responsibility.
    • Spiritual practice is holding both.
      • Remaining present to the difficult and the beautiful.
      • Both are happening right now, in Verdandi’s hands.

Closing

  • The Norns, through Verdandi’s eyes, remind us:
    • Resistance calls us to pay attention not only to what has broken, but to what is breaking.
    • Resilience calls us to pay attention not only to what will endure, but to what is enduring.
    • Spring calls us to pay attention to what is becoming.
  • The world is loud.
    • The headlines are urgent.
    • But spring waits to be noticed.
    • Beneath it all, something is unfolding:
      • Light is lengthening.
      • The ground is softening.
      • Life is returning.
  • May we be people who:
    • Notice.
    • Move past distraction.
    • Stay awake.
    • Refuse to sleepwalk through the season.
    • Pay attention:
      • To what is breaking.
      • To what is healing.
      • To ourselves.
      • To one another.
      • To the turning Earth.
      • To the quiet beginnings already underway.

Practice of Deliberate Noticing

  • In the week to come:
    • Each day, notice one sign of seasonal change.
      • Step outside at the same time each day and notice what is different from yesterday.
    • When you feel a strong reaction to the news or an event:
      • Pause and ask, “What is this feeling telling me that I actually believe?”
    • In one conversation this week:
      • Resist the urge to respond immediately.
      • Let a silence sit for three full seconds before speaking.
    • Spend five quiet minutes simply observing:
      • Without fixing.
      • Without judging.
      • Without planning.