Springtime theology

Only those of us who feel the sharp cold winds of winter can fully appreciate the flowering bushes of spring. One day the bushes are covered with ice and look so naked and cold as they shiver in the breeze. One is tempted to go outside and sit by them just to give them company. The next day, so it seems, they are bursting with colors that take your breath away. It makes you want to grab the camera and record the moment for a lifetime.

Perhaps one of the lessons of spring is to remind us of the changes of life and the special moments they give us. Some experiences you would rather forget as quickly as possible while others you would give anything to hold on to. Like the time you hold your first child in your arms in the delivery room. She is the most beautiful red thing you ever saw, all wet and wrinkly. She really doesn't look like anybody at the moment but who really cares? Someone grab a camera! How can I hang on to this feeling forever? Years later when she walks down the aisle to be held in another man's arms you search for that feeling again. But somehow it is not the same. You can see the blanket and the tiny red face sticking out but you just can't get the same old feeling back. The chills that ran up and down your spine when you felt like the whole world was clapping for you don't seem to come. Changes! And then a few years later you hold your first grandchild and well, you get the picture. Except this time your hair is grayer and your pant size is not fit for public discussion!

Sadly, in a few short weeks the flowering bushes have lost their bright colors of spring and have traded them for the summer colors of green, much like ordinary time in the church season; not much to cheer about. Green is a good color, better than lonely naked brown, but it is not bright yellow, or cheery hot pink. That will all come later, again. See my point in all of this? Just wait! Just breathe a while and everything changes. Just go to sleep and dream a few times and then look around and you hardly recognize the place. It is awfully quiet. Where did the kids go? What happened to the family dog? No barking. And then you go the bathroom and look in the mirror and you understand, nothing is the same. Time has played a mean trick on us. Pimples are no longer the great anxiety trigger; it is baldness and grayness with those dark bags under the wrinkled eyes. We look so much like those lonely naked bushes swaying in in the winter wind.

I don't know what eternity and heaven is like. No, I really don't! I do speculate that somehow those memories we want to hang on to for a lifetime will join us there; the feelings too. And I do think those memories we want to quickly forget will vanish. We won't remember our pant size! Please, God!

But all I can do for now is to go out and enjoy the bushes! They tell me a lot about all of this. They seem to have secrets if I pay attention long enough. Oh, I will be sad when the colors are gone, especially when winter sets in again and the cold sharp winds begins to howl. But I will be patient, spring is coming--it always does! New life with bright purples and red blossoms are just around the corner. I am glad Easter is in the spring in our part of the world. Winter is not so hard to bare when you know what is coming. I am getting my camera ready. Um. Come to think of it, maybe I won't need it.