Why I Love Spring...

originally SUNDAY, MAY 04, 2008

Why I Love Spring...

I've always considered Fall my 'favorite season,' but I've noticed the past few years that when Spring rolls around I seriously consider changing my mind about that. On the 'beautiful scale', the purples, whites and pinks of Spring are serious competition (in my little mind) to the yellows, oranges and reds of Fall. As I walk around our block praying everyday, my soul finds a rare joy in the amazing beauty our Father paints around us, which so few stop to thank Him for (yes, Bobby, I ended my sentence with a preposition). I feel so close to His loving Hands as I see Him transform the world of nature around me each Spring. He is so creative -who ever thought of purple trees? When I was little and I read Dr. Suess books about fish on purple and red trees I always thought he was so silly, but our Father in heaven is a little silly too -because every Spring He paints our trees purple and pink and white.

All this beauty leads me to spiritual thoughts as I walk and pray. First, I think about how each flower and bud on a tree is a sign that our Father in heaven thinks that the world should go on. He is constantly giving life around us and constantly 'making all things new.' Here sin has destroyed our world in so many ways, but He is always healing the world by making things new. The harsh winter seems to kill all life outside in Northern Indiana, but secretly, hiddenly, in the early months of Spring the Father is already giving new life where old life has died. Little buds (imperceptible to most people rushing and running through life) begin to appear on trees, then flowers and leaves -the Father makes all things new in a very beautiful way. It reminds me how God did not create the world just once, but how He is continually creating it over and over, in new ways. How patient He must be to continually heal and fix His beautiful creation that gets destroyed. Just as how during the night, when we sleep, God creates new cells in our body to replace the old ones that died -during the Spring He reaches down from heaven and replaces all that died in nature another time -year after year. This beauty in the trees and bushes, animals and flowers simply reminds me how close God is to me as I sleep -smoothing out the wrinkles on my face and smoothing out the wrinkles on my heart. Day after day -He remains close -holding me, forming me, making me new. His work is not always visible at first -just as the buds are missed by most people in our busy world -but they are there, they are flowering, and in His time they will bear fruit.

Secondly, when I walk and pray and watch the trees turn colors, I think about the 'seasons of the soul' -and how these change in seasons are like our spiritual lives. There are moments in our spiritual lives like the Spring -full of life and flowers, full of grace and God's presence. These set our hearts on fire with love.

Then comes the 'Summer' -the graces of Spring carry us into the Summer -it is hot, but life is full, days are long, and graces abundant. We may have crosses, but we also feel the grace we need to carry them. We want to be martyrs, perfect wives and mothers, holy businessmen, willing to endure all we need to in order to be saints spreading His Love.

After the Summer 'Fall' arrives in our soul. The graces of Spring are beginning to die and the heat of Summer takes it toll -we become weak and begin to 'die' under the weight of the Cross. We still have glimpses of God's presence in our memory and the beauty of the fruit of our work in Summer is before us. But day by day, the leaves fall off, we are naked -we are cold -we are weak -and suddenly we feel like we are alone.

This is the season of Winter. At first the snow and ice may seem pretty. At first we don't panic too much in our souls when things freeze over, for we know that Jesus told us we would suffer in this way if we follow Him. We feel dead, but we have hope because we remember that this is His will and that this kind of season will bear a great harvest of graces in Spring and fruit in the Summer. But then Winter drags on... the snow gets heavier, the nights seem longer, and the cold goes deeper. It is not just our feet that are frozen anymore -the cold moves up our bodies and finally, right before Spring, it seems to even overtake our mind. We can't remember anymore why we suffer as we do. We can't remember God's love, His touch, His graces from the Spring so many months before. We simply feel pain, confusion, abandonment and at times teeter-totter on the precipice of hopelessness. We feel we can do nothing and we see no purpose of our lives. We are lost and our heart and soul seem dead. Dead and forgotten. This happens in every person's spiritual life -it can happen in every relationship of love (in marriage, in deep friendship, in families) -this deep, cold winter is where our Love is tested and purified. All God wants for us to do is try to endure... try to be faithful... try to breathe fiat.

And then Spring comes again. Our hearts are so frozen that we might not at first feel the first drops of rain that fall upon us to melt us. Our hearts have become so limp in the darkness that we might miss those buds that start to grow forth. But suddenly -like the first warm sunny day after a long Winter -everything seems beautiful. The grass is green, the trees turn purple, pink, yellow, white and red. Things aren't as we expect, but they take our breath away. And we realize, that we had not died abandoned in the night -instead, Christ took us so close to His Heart pierced open on the Cross that we simply felt the cold suffering pain pouring from its water and blood -and through this gesture of His, we were brought closer, deeper, more one with Him, more in His image, more able to receive the new graces of Spring again. It was His death that kissed us, and just as we 'died' with Him -He enters in to share His resurrection with us too. Little deaths, little resurrections -that is how the seasons of the soul go.

That's why I love Spring. And that is why I get so happy when I see beauty like the trees in these pictures. There is hope after the winter, after the storm. God is daily reaching into our lives, our hearts, even into our bodies to create them anew. Stop for a moment today and feel that touch of His Fatherly Love -that touch that we so often miss because we are running around too 'busy.' And thank Him for that Love. Thank Him for that beauty. And thank Him for purple and yellow trees.

Amen.