Spring: Bursting Winter Death into Life
My heart is bursting today.
Just before noon my ship tied up in Victoria.
The last time I was ashore was in a torrential Prince Rupert downpour, with water pouring out of every rock crevasse in the forest and every corner of the sky, water saturating the mosses, water seeping down my neck and saturating the scarf under my jacket.
That was only a week ago, but since then the ship has covered hundred of miles of coastline and descended latitudes through several climate zones.
Stepping off ship today, I made tracks for Beacon Hill Park. After the remote coast, it seems a bit like an anthill of people, but I wanted to get off the pavement and smell earth. Earth. It has such a delicious aroma, sweet and spicy all at once. When I live on land I hardly notice because it is the baseline underlying all other smells.
But today as my feet stirred up the smell of rich soil clods, new grass under the old, and the kick of pungent wild onions, the potpourri interrupted my train of thoughts (and my phone conversation as I excitedly told the person on the other end of the line just how good it was).
Coming ashore from ship makes change more noticeable too. Its like pushing the “fast-forward” button on life with the interval set at two weeks or a month. Things progress in jerky leaps that are noticeable because they are unnatural. Natural progression is often unnoticed because it is so slow when life is playing in real time.
So over the past two moths, in a handful of shore-walk snapshots, I have seen Victoria change from winter to spring. Imagine my delight today to find the leaves already out and unfurling, the salmon berry flowers emerged, and the trees already hung with blossoms.
Makes my heart fairly burst like one of the buds.
Life and faith lessons? No application is needed to justify the experience. It was delightful to just be, to soak in sunshine, breath deep fresh air, meander through meadow and wood enjoying all the artistic details. None-the-less, my heart was encouraged with these thoughts:
There are things to be thankful for which might be taken for granted, like the baseline delicious aroma that is always there.
And if impatient for progress, hold on to hope. Things are changing, even if you and I cannot see it immediately. God is at work, the more-than-able God who makes life burst out of winter death.
