Spring and hope are tight. I think they go hiking together, kayaking, catch sunrises and sunsets, listen to the birds, share dreams at happy hour. And they reunite this time of year.
If you have any doubt about that, take a walk and look for the first flowers coming through. Look at color coming into the world after a dark winter. Throw on a short-sleeve t-shirt and sit outside in the sun on the first days that break 60 degrees. There is a shift going on. Even if we dive back into a cold snap, the hope is there. It reminds us. And if we make a point to look for it, to notice it, to share it with others, it might even pull us along to show us more of what it has coming up.
I think God is a fan of spring days as well. They are a chance for us to notice purple–hello to Alice Walker–they are a chance to reach us where we are, in the details of our lives and whatever we have going on. We have a Lent small group going right now, reading Frederick Buechner’s “The Magnificent Defeat.” In an essay called “Message in the Stars,” Buechner writes:
“…there is a God right here in the thick of our day-t0-day lives… trying to get messages through our blindness as we move around down here knee-deep in the fragrant muck and misery and marvel of the world. It is not objective proof of God’s existence that we want but, whether we use religious language for it or not, the experience of his presence…
“His message is not written out in starlight… rather it is written out for each of us in the humdrum, helter-skelter events of each day…
“Who knows what he will say to me today or to you today or in the midst of what kind of unlikely moment he will choose to say it. Not knowing is what makes today a holy mystery as every day is a holy mystery.”
In the winter of the year, or in the winter of our souls, it can be tough to remember to look. Spring gives us a taste of warmth, first glimpses of color, a ray of hope.
If I want to see it, I have to look. I have to open my eyes. I have to look at my life and the world around me.
I like that Buechner uses muck, misery, and marvel together. We each get all those things wrapped up and included in this thing called life. Sometimes the marvel comes out of the other two. It’s not always in the places or the times when we expect it.
But that’s the thing about hope–it’s not something we know for sure, it’s something ahead; something we look forward to. And maybe we think, well, sure, sounds nice, but there is no guarantee. And that’s why spring and hope are tight. We don’t have to live for long to know that spring is coming. It’s going to happen. It’s on the way. We’ve lived through winters, we recognize spring, we know what it looks and feels like. We look for the signs.
And so we have color. And so we have warmth. And so we have spring. And so we have hope.
