Spring!
The extended weather forecast shows temperatures rising to 70 in the next week. I know this because after moving 1) from North Carolina to western PA and 2) from a small, modern condo to a big old house that I bought for its charm, not its insulation, I've been monitoring the 10-day forecast like a horoscope this winter. I'm thankful the weather was relatively mild; I feel a tiny bit like the pilgrims, humbled by their gratitude that it was provided for them to survive.
It sounds silly to make so much of living through a winter that I spent in a 3-bedroom house in the 21st century United States with a thermostat and a stocked pantry. But it's not improbability that often limits my hopes, I think; it's my fear of disobedience and all the disappointment it creates. I've almost felt as if it were too risky to hope for things that I really wanted because the fierceness of those desires might lead me away from God's path. There may be some truth in that caution, but I also think of something C.S. Lewis wrote about how detachment is far closer to hate than love, and how passionate desire is much more akin to the heart of God that we see in the Bible. I think He wants our love for Him to exceed our love for all else by our seeking always to love Him more immensely, not by our reducing our love for all else to the mean and shallow.
I've always loved the wild joyfulness of spring: the smell of the damp earth that's been frozen for so long, the sound of rainwater and snowmelt gushing through the drains, the reckless daffodils that show up even before the final snowfalls sometimes. It's a time of surprise abundance--little plots you've hardly tended suddenly offer up a tuft of crocuses, and the dirt by your door becomes a mass of green shoots prophesying summer daylilies. If someone promised you all of this, and if you worried that hope could lead you astray, wouldn't it be difficult to set your heart on it?
It's really not hoping for spring in the midst of winter that I need to do; it's looking toward a resurrection that gives little sign of its presence, and trying to draw on a unity with God that I can't even personally remember and only barely can imagine--as if I and everybody I know was born stuck in the first winter ever, with only promises of what's to come. But here's the thing: it happens whether we hope for it or not, whether we believe in it or not. In spite of our inability to bring the spring or even to believe fully in it, it is coming soon.
Yes, 70 degrees! Forget that groundhog; you heard it here first.
It sounds silly to make so much of living through a winter that I spent in a 3-bedroom house in the 21st century United States with a thermostat and a stocked pantry. But it's not improbability that often limits my hopes, I think; it's my fear of disobedience and all the disappointment it creates. I've almost felt as if it were too risky to hope for things that I really wanted because the fierceness of those desires might lead me away from God's path. There may be some truth in that caution, but I also think of something C.S. Lewis wrote about how detachment is far closer to hate than love, and how passionate desire is much more akin to the heart of God that we see in the Bible. I think He wants our love for Him to exceed our love for all else by our seeking always to love Him more immensely, not by our reducing our love for all else to the mean and shallow.
I've always loved the wild joyfulness of spring: the smell of the damp earth that's been frozen for so long, the sound of rainwater and snowmelt gushing through the drains, the reckless daffodils that show up even before the final snowfalls sometimes. It's a time of surprise abundance--little plots you've hardly tended suddenly offer up a tuft of crocuses, and the dirt by your door becomes a mass of green shoots prophesying summer daylilies. If someone promised you all of this, and if you worried that hope could lead you astray, wouldn't it be difficult to set your heart on it?
It's really not hoping for spring in the midst of winter that I need to do; it's looking toward a resurrection that gives little sign of its presence, and trying to draw on a unity with God that I can't even personally remember and only barely can imagine--as if I and everybody I know was born stuck in the first winter ever, with only promises of what's to come. But here's the thing: it happens whether we hope for it or not, whether we believe in it or not. In spite of our inability to bring the spring or even to believe fully in it, it is coming soon.
Yes, 70 degrees! Forget that groundhog; you heard it here first.
posted by Tara | 12:20 PM
3 Comments:
Given your heating issues, I am praying for spring to show up and stay!
I just wish the furnace would break and be done with it--before the warranty expires!
These things can be arranged...
*heh heh*
Post a Comment
<< Home