Minding the Process

I live in New England, where it takes a little longer for spring to arrive than in some other parts of the country. Sometimes this can feel frustrating. It's a slow transition. Spring doesn't always behave the way it's supposed to. How else can you explain snowstorms in April? Mud lingers. Trees stay bare, no matter how much you will them to bloom.

This is all true, but I've found there's something exhilarating about watching spring come alive slowly.

This glorious transition is the sum of many subtle changes. First -- the sight of a few crocuses or daffodil bulbs bursting out of the soil. At night, one mild evening the peepers call for the first time from a nearby swamp. The grass shifts from brown to emerald green. Before the maples ever sprout their broad leaves the shrubs and bushes show life first. It's a bottom up process. The ground thaws and wormholes finally burst through, evidence of life below.

Like a child in the womb, life begins, change begins before we see it.

Some people hate New England winters, but there is something about them to embrace. There is something about each season to love; to learn from.

There is a stark beauty in bare branches and snow that sparkles. There is always beauty somewhere, even in the bleak seasons. I love how in our darkest, coldest January days, the light is already returning to us before we notice.

Conversely when summer is at its peak the days are shortening, as much as the thought saddens us. But this is the way it has to be.

I love how the seasons are cyclical, how there is a constant ebb and flow like the waves. The is the story of our very lives. How perfect that God would make all of nature to comfort and remind us: there will be peaks and there will be valleys. There will be a time to plant and a time to harvest.

There will be times of great change that feel as if nothing at all is changing or ever will change. Yet the process has been set in motion, and in a time not so very far away, we will see. Like the leaves that unfold after the warm spring rains overnight, making us wonder how we had forgotten what they look like.