It never fails. I have yearned for the coming of Spring each April for as long as I can remember. Winter has its beauty and its purpose. I appreciate Winter’s invitation to adopt a different rhythm defined by slowness and introspection. Still, nothing excites me more than when the first flowers of Spring begin to peek through the ground. If Winter is about slowness and introspection for me, Spring encourages me to notice all the places where life continues, undaunted by the desolation of Winter: buds hardened by Winter begin to crack open, exposing tiny green leaves inside; daffodils and hyacinths make their flamboyant displays; and honeybees born in late Autumn emerge from their hives to find a world none of them have ever seen before.
Our lives don’t necessarily follow the same rhythms as the seasons; however, observing the life within nature can reveal some things about us. Life stirs within us as well. Sometimes it’s showy and obvious, like the defiant emergence of tulips in all their entrancing colors. Other times it’s less obvious, like the slow greening that occurs at the growing edges of twigs. However it looks, life stirs within.
Christians worldwide are preparing to mark Holy Week: the week that leads up to Easter and includes the three holiest days in the Christian calendar: Maundy (or Holy) Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday. The Triduum (or “Three Days”) marks Jesus’s journey from life to death and culminates with his emergence to life again, celebrated with fire, oil, water, bread, and wine at the Great Vigil of Easter. Theologians across time have interpreted this week’s events in various ways, but they all center on the relentlessness of life. In the words of Dr. Ian Malcolm (played by Jeff Goldblum) in the original “Jurassic Park” film from 1993, “Life finds a way.”
If, as Christina Rosetti writes, “Spring is when life is alive in everything,” then maybe we are always in Spring. Life is always alive, even if it is hard to detect in a particular moment. Maybe what I most yearn for each April is a more profound awareness of life, one that is more obvious, allowing the energy and focus that would go to detecting signs of life to go towards simply celebrating it.
