Because the trees, bless them, are withholding their leaves, the honeyed sun pours itself into the creek, and all the minnows and tadpoles wiggle in its warmth. By the time the leaves are grown, so will they be. Still, along the banks, the brush is taking on green and wild flowers peek through last year’s carpet. The stream, fed by recent snow and rain, is full and rushing, and the smooth rocks beneath it feel its motion and hear its song. At last, it is springtime, and here, in the creek’s world, every living thing is glad.
I croon to you each morning in soft, low tones, “wooo-oooo-oooo,” not, as some suppose, from grief— far be it—but to ease you gently from your web of dreams into the dawning day. Float into its light simply, and let its radiance bathe your heart with peace.
What fastidious detail in each of these spring flowers! How can there not be a Who behind their being? Such beauty! And eyes to behold it, and minds to wonder, and hearts to understand. All this, every bit exquisite, each detail, from a tender grape hyacinth out beyond the farthest star. And to think that all of it is but one flash-like fleck eternally riding on radiating waves amidst a brilliance of flashes, world upon world upon world. Why, you can’t even see its beginning, or its end! So I ask, how can there not be a Who? When all this wonder dances in endless joy through every molecule of being and through all the spaces beyond, and between, and within, how can there not be a Who?
If you go to the woods between raindrops in spring you will find an assortment of green growing things that surpasses what you had imagined. But there it is, a green world rising, the earth’s winter dreams coming to life right before your very eyes.
As if the angels had carpeted their floor with the woolly pelts of spring lambs, thick clouds covered the sky. In the valley below, cattle, free at last from the dark of their winter barn, grazed on fresh grass, glad for the gifts of the rain. April showers. Yes, let it be. In May we shall have magnificent gardens.
For all who have weathered winter’s storms and struggled against its darkness, for those whose faith is flagging and whose hope has grown thin, for those who have lost sight of the world’s enduring beauty and forgotten the grace of the Yes, let there be lilacs.
These are the faces of triumph, of “We Did It!” and of joy. These are the colors of Yes painting the portrait of spring, welcoming it with such gladness that even the dirt laughs. Oh, little ones, if you only knew the power of your shining to bless with elation every eye lucky enough to see you bloom.
Here in the northern hemisphere, spring has finally arrived. Spring! Spring! My personal favorite time of year. And what am I getting? Temperatures heading below freezing and predictions for snow! I could be downright ornery about that. I could stomp my foot and shake my finger at the sky and yell, “Boooo!! How dare you!” at the weather. But a lot of good that would do, hey?
It would make about as much sense as me trying to change Ted’s political views, or Rene’s religion, or Mary’s methods of handling money—as much they may differ from my own. No, the wiser course is to accept what is and love life anyway.
Most of us feel an inner friction when the world doesn’t match our stories about how things should be. We believe in the intrinsic truth of our stories. We identify with them and feel that they define who we are. So it’s all too easy to take it personally when we run across situations or views that contradict them. We take offense. We want to gear up for battle against what seems an attack—against the thing that suggests that we’re wrong to believe what we’re certain is right and true.
But is there another way to handle contradictions to our beliefs, besides fighting against them? I ran across a quote this week that said, “We can’t change what life brings to our door until we learn to change the way in which we answer it.”
I can’t change the weather (or Ted, or Rene, or Mary, for that matter), but I can take charge of my disappointment in it. I can begin by accepting that it is what it is (and that my friends are who they are). I can look at the situation and see what part of it is upsetting me, and with that information in hand, I can look for ways to address what I’m experiencing as a problem.
If I step back from my distress over the predicted freezing weather, I can see that what’s upsetting me isn’t the cold itself, but its threat to my baby tulips. Then I can set about protecting them.
Stepping back from my differences with my friends’ beliefs is a little harder. I have to admit that maybe their reasons for thinking as they do are as valid as my reasons for my own beliefs. Maybe they formed their beliefs the same way I acquired mine—from childhood experiences or training, from what they read or heard in school from trusted teachers, or from media, or friends. I have to accept that maybe I don’t have a lock on the truth. Maybe it’s different or bigger than either my friends or I suppose.
Regardless of why their opinions are different from mine, I have to ask myself whether the differences are bigger than our friendship. Aren’t there many other areas of life where we are in harmony?
With so many of us at each other’s throats these days over differences ofopinion, maybe each of us needs to be looking at the way we respond to what life brings to our door. When what we find there doesn’t mesh with our own ideas about what’s right or true, maybe we need to give deeper thought to how we want to respond. We won’t solve the problems that all of us agree need to be solved by fighting against each other. As author Graham Greene once wrote, “Hate is a lack of imagination.” Let’s imagine that we can be more creative by working together, that we can identify the problems more clearly, that we can be more flexible about experimenting with possible solutions.
And if we can’t, let’s accept that our differences are part of the human condition and agree to respect each other nonetheless.
Artist Andy Warhol wrote, “Sometimes people let the same problem make them miserable for years when they could just say, ‘So what?’ That’s one of my favorite things to say. ‘So what.’” There’s as much wisdom as humor in that. So your ideas differ from mine. So what? I can love you anyway. And the world will continue to turn.
Wishing you gracious acceptance of whatever knocks at your door.
The rain came today, softly and smelling of spring. Still, the birds sang, and on the buds of a flowering quince a wee worm posed. In the rain’s quiet light the world seems such a tender place, delicate, and deserving of all the care that we can give.
The red-fingered hands of bleeding hearts reach up for the pearls of rain that scatter themselves on its baby leaves, the ones that survived and revived after the days of deep cold. To them, it’s as if the threat never happened, as if life itself wasn’t hanging in the balance. Birth pains; nothing more, a small price to pay for the privilege of standing here in this wondrous world, listening to birdsong and the splash of falling rain.
