[Seasons: Spring III]
Before there’s life bursting from the end of every branch, spring comes and yet it feels lifeless. We must look closely. Bulging under the soil are the crocuses; taking shape are the daffodil spears. The tree buds that eventually burst with pink and white and unfold with the spritely green of new leaves must first take bulbous shape and wait for weeks. Sometimes months.
Long in advance of spring's new life, the conditions for that new life are being prepared. All the obvious signs of advancement and growth proceed from less obvious signs, which often require a keen eye to notice.
There’s a deep truth here to behold: new life is but the public display of the deep, slow, less obvious preparation that precedes it. What I don’t mean is that long before we see renewal, growth, change, advancement, maturation, or resurrection, people are *working* privately before their public debut. Spring doesn’t exert itself to squeeze to the surface the first asparagus shoot; no, there are holy forces at work preparing the conditions for that emergence, and spring is merely the setting.
We are the bearers, the setting, the soil of divine work preparing us for renewal. The work is underway long before we show obvious signs of it, long before our life is a living testimony of spring bloom. The evidence is there but it takes a keen, patient eye to notice.
