It’s been the darkest winter I can remember, skies uniformly leaden, the earth deluged, the nation divided, and the world angst-ridden in the throes of a deadly virus that looks set to change our way of being for ever.
But the truth is, the future was never ours. We hope, we make plans, we strive and steer towards our goals, though, often, life imposes other designs and death may come as a thief in the night.
There is no future except what opens up from the present moments and how we approach the challenges and appreciate the blessings they afford. It’s about our best endeavours in plying with what is. Oughts and shoulds belong to the past.
Earning and deserving don’t enter the picture. Rain falls and sun shines on just and unjust alike. The life of the planet and the wellbeing of everything on it awaits our generous response. We can't do it alone. We need each other. And we need the mercy and grace of the Creator.
If death and destruction can steal a march on us, so can good fortune, just like the breathtaking revelation of spring...
“Our Lord has written the promise of resurrection, not in books alone, but in every leaf in springtime.”
Martin Luther
“Spring is the time of plans and projects.”
Leo Tolstoy
“It is spring again. The earth is like a child that knows poems by heart.”
Rainer Maria Rilke
“Nostalgia in reverse, the longing for yet another strange land, grew especially strong in spring.”
Vladimir Nabokov
“I enjoy the spring more than the autumn now. One does, I think, as one gets older.”
Virginia Woolf
“The deep roots never doubt spring will come.”
Marty Rubin
“It was such a spring day as breathes into a man an ineffable yearning, a painful sweetness, a longing that makes him stand motionless, looking at the leaves or grass, and fling out his arms to embrace he knows not what.”
John Galsworthy
“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
“A Robin said: The Spring will never come,
And I shall never care to build again.
A Rosebush said: These frosts are wearisome,
My sap will never stir for sun or rain.
The half Moon said: These nights are fogged and slow,
I neither care to wax nor care to wane.
The Ocean said: I thirst from long ago,
Because earth's rivers cannot fill the main. —
When Springtime came, red Robin built a nest,
And trilled a lover's song in sheer delight.
Grey hoarfrost vanished, and the Rose with might
Clothed her in leaves and buds of crimson core.
The dim Moon brightened. Ocean sunned his crest,
Dimpled his blue, yet thirsted evermore.”
Christina Rossetti
"Nature is bent on new beginning
and death has not a chance of winning..."
Rosy Cole
