FOR NOW the winter is past; the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth, the time of singing has come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land. The fig tree puts forth its figs, and the vines are in blossom; they give forth fragrance.Song of Solomon 2:11-13 (NRSV)
I HAVE noticed spring pays little attention to the manufacturers of calendars. She strolls into town when she’s ready and not a moment sooner.Philip Gulley, Porch Talk
APRIL is the cruelest month.T. S. Eliot, “The Waste Land”
THERE IS another sort of day which needs celebrating in song—the day of days when spring at last holds up her face to be kissed, deliberate and unabashed. On that day, no wind blows either in the hills or in the mind; no chill finds the bone.E. B. White, One Man’s Meat
EACH little flow’r that opens, each little bird that sings, God made their glowing colors, God made their tiny wings.Cecil F. Alexander, “All Things Bright and Beautiful”
WHY DO WE garden? We garden because we are created in the image of the Master Gardener, in whose likeness we grow in measure as we garden. We are not only the field that God gardens but his fellow gardeners in the Paradise he is restoring.Vigen Guroian, The Fragrance of God
ALL BEAUTY in the world is either a memory of Paradise or a prophecy of the transfigured world.Nicholas Berdyaev, The Divine and the Human
THOSE WHO contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. There is symbolic as well as actual beauty in the migration of the birds, the ebb and flow of the tides, the folded bud ready for the spring. There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature—the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after the winter.Rachel Carson, The Sense of Wonder
LOVELY spring: Beautiful spring! The woods with vocal welcomes ring, And we a grateful offering bring To our God who sends the spring.Shaker hymn, “Welcome Spring”
‘TIS THE spring of souls today; Christ has burst his prison, And from three days’ sleep n death as a sun hath risen; All the winter of our sins, long and dark is flying From his light, to whom we give laud and praise undying.
Now the queen of seasons, bright with the day of splendor, With the royal feast of feasts, comes its joy to render, Comes to glad Jerusalem, who with true affection Welcomes in unwearied strains Jesus’ resurrection.John of Damascus, “Come, Ye Faithful, Raise the Strain”
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Related Elsewhere:
Recent Reflections include:
Resurrected Life (April 2, 2007)
Suffering God (March 5, 2007)
Reflections: Winter (January 29, 2007)
Signs of the Church (January 8, 2007)
