Harbingers of Spring
It’s mid-February in Ontario but there are signs of spring’s arrival. The snows are retreating. The lakes are beginning to thaw. The hard, cold ice is losing its fierceness and the shadows from the warmer waters below are dancing across the snow clad surface. It’s elusive. Fleeting. Teasing. But it signals that the seasons are pondering a change.
Our hearts also grow cold and mark this wintry season. Failure, sadness, anger all leave their battle scars on us like tattoos on elephant seals defending their turf. Life’s disappointments weigh heavy and our souls can crack under the strain. Then a surprise!
Something extraordinary happens—a rainbow flashes from starboard to port. God’s gift that the winds are changing and new life awaits us. Like Taylor Swift ironically reminding us that the seasons of life change, but we will survive:
I forgot that you existed,
And I thought that it would kill me.
But it didn’t.
And it was so nice, So peaceful and quiet.
Winter lightens its grip. Spring smiles. The page turns. Even the melancholy Hopkins (at times) rejoices in the fresh greenery’s suggestive powers:
All things…are charged with love, are charged with God and if we know how to touch them give off sparks and take fire. (Gerard Manley Hopkins, Notebook, 1881).
Life’s mystery of the changing seasons. The harbingers of spring wing our way and I am grateful for it all.
Loving the Swift/Hopkins combo here!
Oh, yes winters can be sobering and I too often forget that there is a time for everything and there are reasons for them, voluntarily or unvoluntarily. The difference is our comfort we find in those moments as even summer can be scorching yet it dry the clothes, if you have them to wash or water for that matter. So I hope my circumstances and mind changed to accommodate Father's plan so u don't forget to enjoy the moments.