Is Spring Ever Tedious?

daffodils aka jonquils


tulips


hyacinth










I caught these images with my camera yesterday. DD7 and I planted several of these only last fall, so this is the first return on those efforts. I was delighted to find the hyacinth in a spot I had forgotten I'd put it. I especially love how there are still raindrops visible. Forgive me if the following is trite--it is hard to avoid platitudes on such a subject!

Is any spring ever redundant or unremarkable? This is something I love about spring. I have been amazed at how spectacularly new the concept seems each year. Something about winter's frozen bleakness seems permanent, like death is permanent to the flesh it visits. Even when I prepare myself for the seasonal burst of color, for the expansion of life in new sounds and new creatures, I am still astonished by how great it is when it finally happens. I love how its timing lines up with the lengthening of the days and the return of warmth. I realize it has to be this way, but the very intelligence behind that is marvelous to me.

I have heard many sermons on the resurrection, and I know that it purposely happens in the Church calendar during spring. Jesus' return from death to life is central to the Christian faith and it too will never be a tedious subject. Good Friday and Easter are just next week, so of course it's not far from my mind. There is much I might enjoy writing about that but not tonight. Instead I am thinking, even without those ceremonies and celebrations, spring is so fascinating. I mean, why the gigantic bouquet, God? Why cover the ground in flowers? Doesn't it strike everyone in the universe as a gift? And to us horticulturists, flowers equal fruit, which gives life to man and beast, fruit equals seeds, and seeds are a promise of the next generation. Then of course that gets me, a woman pregnant with life, thinking about the way of a man with a woman. I love this quote from scripture:

There are three things which are too wonderful for me,
Yes, four which I do not understand:
The way of an eagle in the air
The way of a serpent on a rock,
The way of a ship in the midst of the sea,
And the way of a man with a virgin.
Proverbs 30:18-19

How inscrutible some things were to the ancient mind! Things like buoyancy and flight, which we can study and understand now to the infinite degree. They have become commonplace to us--all too commonplace in the case of sex, unfortunately. At least I can take heart in the fact that there still remain many mysteries. I am glad we cannot make it rain. I am glad we cannot stop death. And I am glad we do not control the seasons.

Just like Disney showed us in his tribute to this season, Bambi, spring is a time for "twitterpation"!

Now is spring ever tedious?