No winter lasts forever; no spring skips its turn. —Hal Borland, writer
We interrupt this crazy world to bring you….
SPRING!
This season which officially begins today never ever ceases to surprise and delight me. I’m not sure exactly why. I could not give you a detailed physiological description of what exactly happens to human bodies when the temps get warmer, and the light gets longer and the trees bloom and the flowers bud and the grass comes back so green. Smiles certainly seem to appear more spontaneously among us. Hearts beat harder and lung “huff” deeper that first time you get on the bike or go out for a run or start prepping your garden on bended knees.
That’s to be expected. We are just emerging from a long winter’s hibernation after all.
I wonder what a psychologist might opine professionally about the diagnosis of “spring fever.” I know my soul soars a bit higher when I look up into a bright blue late March sky, one that seems to have sent packing the slate grey heavy-laden skies of deep winter. My spirit absolutely lightens and brightens just to be able to take an ice-free walk, no need to steer clear of frozen slush piles on the street. It’s all melting now, maybe even melted for good. Yes, I know that in New England there are occasional surprise spring snowstorms. In mid-March of 2018, a blizzard struck and upwards of 25 inches or more of snow fell here, with 17 inches recorded in Boston, and a tide so high the financial district flooded.
BRRRRRRR…..Enough of that!
Instead, let’s look ahead and look forward. Listen to the first call of the first at bat and first ball and strikes for a Red Sox player on Opening Day at Fenway Park. It’s just two weeks away. They might actually be good this year! Very soon I’ll take my mom to the Clam Box on Quincy Shore Drive in Wollaston. I’ll get a grilled hot dog and the best onion rings in western civilization. She’ll get a cheeseburger and if it’s balmy enough we might even sit outside and look at the Boston skyline in the distance, over a blue and green expanse of the sea.
What rituals, what traditions, what events mark your opening day of spring?
I hope that you are ready to revel in these rites of spring. Celebrate them with gusto. Enjoy them fully. For spring is a miracle, a guarantee that no matter how harsh the winter, or even the world we find ourselves living in…no matter what, the earth turns, and the sun comes back, and the resurrection season appears.
Nothing human can stop spring. Not any executive order from the President. Not a budget cut from his minion Tommy Tesla. Nope. Their fleeting powers pale in comparison to the Almighty, who was and is and always will be. Kind of like the promise of spring.
I know I need spring more this year than in past years, to push back against the chaos in, and worry about, the state of our world right now. I need spring to feel the natural hope that underlies this time when the earth wakes up and seemingly, everything is new again. Anything seems possible. Summer stands in the far distance but it is waving at us now and getting closer and closer by the day.
Welcome spring.
Sure, we know you always come back to us, and yet, when you do appear again, God renews all of Creation. God rouses the world. God dares us to believe again, believe in renewal, believe in new life, believe in believing. C’mon spring. We are ready.
What took you so long?
The Reverend John F. Hudson is Senior Pastor of the Pilgrim Church, United Church of Christ, in Sherborn, Massachusetts (pilgrimsherborn.org). He blogs at sherbornpastor.blogspot.com and is a resident scholar at the Collegeville Institute at Saint John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota. He also teaches spiritual memoir classes. For twenty-five years he was a columnist whose essays appeared in newspapers throughout Massachusetts and Rhode Island. He has served churches in New England since 1989. For comments, please be in touch: pastorjohn@pilgrimsherborn.org.
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