I recently returned from a brief trip to my old stomping grounds of New England, an area I think of with great nostalgia.  It is beautiful, replete with tall pines, rolling landscape, and picturesque streams, lakes, and the vast Atlantic.  Spring had not yet taken hold — the trees were still bare, the grass drained of life.  Patches of snow still lingered, a thin rime of ice clinging to the ponds and lakes.  I came home to our flat Midwest landscape to find an explosion of spring — everything is in leaf, from the battered coral bells (our dog’s favorite chew toy) to our lilac bushes.  Even the weeds have pushed through the bare ground with something akin to joy.

“Spring”  evokes so many meanings — elasticity, origin, rebirth, “to rise up”.  It is the fulfillment of a promise that life and beauty will be ours to enjoy again, that what is seemingly lifeless will be reanimated under God’s plan of renewal.  That includes that tree in our front yard, the one that I’ve hated for years, but is still there despite my intentions to root it out.  To read why, check out “The Tree” under “Recent Musings” and find out how I learned  to truly see something, it’s not enough to rely on my own vision.