[Seasons: Spring X]
I begin my work in the hoophouse in early spring. The plastic cover protects the seedlings from suffering a premature death due to frost exposure.
Spring is a paradox, as it both signals the time for dormant plants to awaken, sprout, and grow, but it also has the power to kill those same plants. It brings longer days, warmer sun, and the promise of summer’s ideal growing conditions, but it daily threatens to swallow any progress into its fridgid belly.
The seasons of life are full of paradoxes. We dismiss their complexity when we think of them in dualistic terms—as good or bad, positive or negative, easy or tough. As a consequence, the season we are living in and the season we imagine we’re living in are in conflict. Only by holding them in tension—the good with the bad, the life with the death—can we fully experience their richness.
Then we can honestly and accurately face the hardship and embrace the blessings.
I’ve witnessed a lot of death in the wake of overly simplistic understandings of life’s seasons. On the farm, this means young plants will surely die. The same occurs to tender new growth in our lives.
