Spring is springing...

I wakened to the melody of rain on our tin roof and the call of the mourning dove...two of my favorite songs. It is spring in the mountains. One day is warm and sunny, the next cold and rainy. The weather, like life, is never static. Daffodils have been in bloom for a month by our stone walkway and the hyacinths and tulips are joining in. The fertilizer and lime have turned the hayfields an Ireland emerald green. Everywhere there is evidence of new life bursting up through the mud and debris of the seasons past.
New baby chicks live in the basement under the bright warmth of spotlights. Turkeys talk softly down the hill below our bedroom windows. Rabbits are hopping out of the brush and over the lawn to the woods. Sparrows are nesting in the Spanish moss in my grapevine wreath while bluebirds make their nests in the boxes on the fence posts. A group of four young deer are spending the nights on the hill below Tim and Jeannie’s house. And the groundhog, newly emerged from a long winter’s sleep, has eaten Mama’s rhododendron down to the ground as a spring snack. The earth’s inhabitants are hungry for light and warmth and food. I include myself among the deer, the chicks and turkeys, the rabbits, the birds, and even the groundhog. I, too, long for new life and light.
As I watch the miracles of spring in this my sixty third year, I am as filled with wonder as a young child. Old people, if they pay attention, and little children are able to see the miracles that surround them everyday without the filter of being a grown-up. They know what an absolute miracle it is that peeper frogs come back to sing their song at the same time and place every year. They take delight in the feel of fluffy baby chicks newly hatched, peeping and pecking the hands that feed them. The choosing and picking of spring flowers for a bouquet is an occasion for jubilation. The gift of the world we live in is still a gift unmarred by fears of pollution and global warming.
Just for today I will live with thanksgiving in my heart as I celebrate the wonders of this gracious old world we share with all of God’s creations. I will watch the horses and donkeys run down the hill to meet me, tails and manes flying in the wind, and sing a song of thanksgiving for their fleet feet. I pray my soul’s feet will be as swift as theirs when I run to meet my Creator. Like the Psalmist I yearn to “have wings like a dove to fly away and be at rest... to find a shelter from the raging wind and the tempest.” I am sheltered now in this time of new life. This blessed season in body and soul is a gift beyond measure. I rest in the unchanging Goodness that has created me and all that is within and without... the world of springtime is blooming in my soul today. Thanks be to God.