Skip to content

Posts tagged ‘Spring’

Apr 7

Bear the Weight and the Wait

“How great is the love of God! He loved me long before I knew His name. He wooed me, chased me, enthralled me, and captured my heart. He didn’t prove His love at a candlelight dinner. There were no long-stemmed roses, but there were thorns. Yes, there were thorns.” – Katherine J. Walden

“Good Friday is not about us trying to “get right with God.” It is about us entering the difference between God and humanity and just touching it for a moment. Touching the shimmering sadness of humanity’s insistence that we can be our own gods, that we can be pure and all-powerful.” – Nadia Bolz-Weber

Enter fully into the heaviness of this day, Good Friday.
What is Good about this?
Carry a sliver of the Cross.
Jesus bearing all but your sliver.
On the edge, flounder, a thread of hope.
Held in grace and love.
Remember and remain.
For when Sunday comes.
The third day.
Redemption. Resurrection. Easter.
It means nothing without the angst of Good Friday, the weight.
The hollowness and exhaustion of Holy Saturday, the wait.
Sunday comes, but not without Friday and Saturday.
Sacred, holy ground.
Preparing us for transformation to Easter people.
The gift of spring.
Hope fulfilled.
It is and will be done.

“We focus on Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday, but we forget to pause in the stillness of the days between. Find time today to be present in that place of waiting. There is treasure to be found in the sacred peace that comes as you breathe in that place of quiet surrender. Don’t rush through the space called “Between.” – Katherine J. Walden

Apr 5

Spring Delivered

“A single act of kindness throws out roots in all directions, and the roots spring up and make new trees.” – Amelia Earhart

“The smallest act of kindness is worth more than the grandest intention.” – Oscar Wilde

When winter lingers into April, clinging tightly.
Deliver spring.
Beautiful bright flowers on a rainy cold day from friends who stick and stay.
“Just a little something to say we are thinking of you! Happy Spring, love Chris and Lynn.”
So much more than “a little something.”
Acts of kindness.
Grace in action, no words can compete.
Love shows up in so many ways.
We all have the capacity and calling to be carriers of love.
Joy multiplies with a simple hello, a text, a call.
The loudest often in quiet authentic acts.
In unexpected flowers delivered on an April winter day.
Spring delivered when nature is holding out on us, seasons in an arm wrestle and head lock.
Pass it on.
Deliver spring today.

“Life is a full circle, widening until it joins the circle motions of the infinite.”― Anais Nin

Apr 3

When to Stop

“Blessed are we who are learning to hope. And how to let go. When to act. And when to stop.” — Kate Bowler and Jessica Richie, The Lives We Actually Have: 100 Blessings for Imperfect Days

“Things have changed. And it would be silly to imagine you haven’t been altered along with them. You are not who you once were. Bless that old self. They did such a great job with what they knew. They made you who you were—all the mistakes and heartbreak and naivety and courage. And blessed are you who you are now. You who aren’t pretending things are the same. You who continue to grow and stretch and show up to your life as it really is—wholehearted, vulnerable, maybe a tiny bit afraid. Blessed are you the changed.”— Kate Bowler and Jessica Richie, The Lives We Actually Have: 100 Blessings for Imperfect Days

This week is a week to not merely pause, but to stop.
No doing. No rushing. No fear.
Hope. Let go. Act. Stop.
Framework and foundation.
In the process, unfolding of change, of a new day.
May each of us be blessed, present, wholehearted today, this week.
To keep trying, coming up short, starting again and again.
A resolve, a promise kept.
Winter lingers longer, spring, resurrection coming soon.
Love, trust and faith to you in this moment and each step on the journey ahead.

“But bring me back to this moment, God. The gratitude that rises up within me lifts my eyes and settles my soul. Resurrection has happened again today—you made the sun rise, and brought love to the world already, in the shape of a cross. The hardest work is already done. The work that remains is simply more of it: more love, more trust, more faith in the unseen pleasure you take just gazing at us, sitting here.”— Kate Bowler and Jessica Richie, The Lives We Actually Have: 100 Blessings for Imperfect Days

Apr 1

April Showers, Minnesota-Style

“April hath put a spirit of youth in everything. (Sonnet XCVIII)”― William Shakespeare, Shakespeare’s Sonnets

“Don’t wait for someone to bring you flowers. Plant your own garden and decorate your own soul.” – Luther Burbank

April showers, ala Minnesota.
There may be a bit of delay in the bloom.
But there are flowers underneath the fresh blanket of fluffy water.
Preparing, softening, readying for spring.
Never doubt spring will come.
Nor doubt winter will linger until ready to bid adieu.

“The deep roots never doubt spring will come.” – Marty Rubin

Mar 27

Planting Trees You’ll Never See

“Wonder is the heaviest element on the periodic table. Even a tiny fleck of it stops time.” – Diane Ackerman

“First day of spring
The whole world’s wakin’ up and turnin’ green
And everything connects to everything

It’s a beautiful design
It just takes love and faith and grace, a little time

We’re all sons and daughters, just ripples on the water
Trying to make it matter until our time to leave
One day, they’ll carve your name in stone
And send your soul on home

‘Til then it’s prayin’ for rain and pullin’ up the weeds
Plantin’ trees we’ll never see”
– Lyrics to Amy Grant’s newly released song Planting Trees We’ll Never See

A drive, music turned up high.
Windows open to let spring air in, stale air out.
New music and familiar too.
A fresh playlist to enter a new season.
Winding roads to take.
Twists and turns.
Trees lining the path.
Small and big.
Scatter seeds. Pull weeds.
Planting trees you’ll never see.
Leave a legacy of love wherever you go.

Mar 21

The Second Day of Spring

“Life changes in the instant. The ordinary instant.” – Joan Didion

“When people want to know more about God, the son of God tells them to pay attention to the lilies of the field and the birds of the air, to women kneading bread and workers lining up for their pay. Whoever wrote this stuff believed that people could learn as much about the ways of God from paying attention to the world as they could from paying attention to scripture.” – Barbara Brown Taylor, An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith

We put a lot of hope, focus and energy into firsts, into lasts, into nexts, into moving on.
But the whole and entirety of life is in the second, third, fourth, middle days between firsts and lasts.
We remember too little, the highlights, the lowlights, the trips, the falls.
Forgetting the ordinary days of grace, laughter, joy.
Not a mere snapshot but the entire story, the narrative, the love, the staying.
A lot of small steps to our finish lines and start lines.
Slow down and feel each step in the journey.
Today is the second day of spring.
Spring awaits patiently to be revealed under the snow, witness the melt.
One day at a time to green grass, brilliant color of bloom, precursor to summer.
Stay awake, aware and steeped in the waters of today, the second day of spring.

“One day we will remember how lucky we were to have known their love, with wonder, not grief.” – Elizabeth Postle

Mar 6

Last Snows

“Yes, I deserve a spring – I owe nobody nothing.”― Virginia Woolf, A Writer’s Diary

“Think of the universe as an eternal creative unfolding.
Trees blossom.
Cells replicate.
Rivers forge new tributaries.
The world pulses with productive energy, and everything that exists on this planet is driven by that energy.
Every manifestation of this unfolding is doing its own work on behalf of the universe, each in its own way, true to its own creative impulse.”― Rick Rubin, The Creative Act: A Way of Being

A heavy white coat clings to the trees and shrubs.
March snow.
Different that November snow.
Last snows.
The finale to winter.
Prelude to spring.
Nourishing, softening the earth.
Alarm goes off to awaken the seeds and bulbs.
Snooze button a few more times.
Then spring will get up, rise. ensue.
Bursting with color, resurrection, joy.
The anticipation of last snows.
Of new life arriving soon.

“Zoom in and obsess. Zoom out and observe. We get to choose.”― Rick Rubin, The Creative Act: A Way of Being

Mar 4

2 Comments

Exclamation Points Abound!!!

“And the Spring arose on the garden fair,
Like the Spirit of Love felt everywhere;
And each flower and herb on Earth’s dark breast
Rose from the dreams of its wintry rest.”
― Percy Bysshe Shelley, The Complete Poems

“The poet lives and writes at the frontier between deep internal experience and the revelations of the outer world. There is no going back for the poet once this frontier has been reached; a new territory is visible and what has been said cannot be unsaid. The discipline of poetry is in overhearing yourself say difficult truths from which it is impossible to retreat. Poetry is a break for freedom. In a sense all poems are good; all poems are an emblem of courage and the attempt to say the unsayable; but only a few are able to speak to something universal yet personal and distinct at the same time; to create a door through which others can walk into what previously seemed unobtainable realms, in the passage of a few short lines.”― David Whyte

A poem.
A prayer.
A song.
A dance.
An exclamation point!
Pause to praise, to delight, to kneel at the altars of ordinary days.
Allow and invite awe to do its work in you.
Pass it on.
Embody the elements and essence of spring.
May you find many exclamation points woven through this day.
And respond accordingly.
!!!

“That is one good thing about this world…there are always sure to be more springs.”― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Avonlea

Mar 1

The Promise of March

“Spring drew on…and a greenness grew over those brown beds, which, freshening daily, suggested the thought that Hope traversed them at night, and left each morning brighter traces of her steps.”― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“March came in that winter like the meekest and mildest of lambs, bringing days that were crisp and golden and tingling, each followed by a frosty pink twilight which gradually lost itself in an elfland of moonshine.”― L.M. Montgomery

March 1st.
The snow is softly falling.
And it’s March,
Threshold month.
One foot in winter.
One foot tipping into spring.
Not before.
Not after.
In between but tilting to the promise of spring.
The harvest of wintering, of preparation to fruition.
Bloom coming soon.
Colors to burst.
Sun to linger longer.
The power of transformation, and of seeing it unfold.

“It is spring again. The earth is like a child that knows poems by heart.”― Rainer Maria Rilke

Feb 28

Red Burst, Prelude to Spring

“Spring work is going on with joyful enthusiasm.”― John Muir, The Wilderness World of John Muir

“When spring came, even the false spring, there were no problems except where to be happiest. The only thing that could spoil a day was people and if you could keep from making engagements, each day had no limits. People were always the limiters of happiness except for the very few that were as good as spring itself.”― Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast

Suddenly, a red burst landed on the barren branch.
Blue sky backdrop pops too.
In the lull of winter, a kiss of spring.
An embrace of color.
A dance of delight.
Signs, wonders, awe abound in each day.
Awaiting the sharpening of our senses.
The awakening of our hope.
Not quite here yet, but spring is preparing and planning its arrival.
An invitation to joy.
Say “YES!”

“Come with me into the woods where spring is
advancing, as it does, no matter what,
not being singular or particular, but one
of the forever gifts, and certainly visible.”― Mary Oliver, Dog Songs: Poems

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »