the prayer of creation

Spring beaming

Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers today;

And give us not to think so far away

As the uncertain harvest; keep us here
All simply in the springing of the year.

Oh, give us pleasure in the orchard white,

Like nothing else by day, like ghosts by night;

And make us happy in the happy bees,

The swarm dilating round the perfect trees.

And make us happy in the darting bird

That suddenly above the bees is heard,

The meteor that thrusts in with needle bill,

And off a blossom in mid air stands still.

For this is love and nothing else is love,

The which it is reserved for God above

To sanctify to what far ends He will,

But which it only needs that we fulfill.

"A Prayer in Spring" by Robert Frost, from Collected Poems, Prose, & Plays. © The Library of America, 1995. Reprinted with permission.

Spring is the queen of Seasons.  She is clothed in a dress made of sunshine, constantly being breathed upon and fluttered by a sweet twilight breeze, and generously sprinkled with cherry blossome petals.  

She smells of daffodils, tulips, and basically any other good smelling flower of Spring. 

 Her crown is made of dogwood flowers, woven together by the branches of the new weeping willows.  

Spring exclaims in the most vivid pinks, the purest whites, the most feathery petals, the sweetest scents, the buzziest bees, and the chirpiest birds, that He is RISEN.  Alleluia! And even at those moments when I get caught up in my long laundry list of life things, it goes on singing and doesn’t stop until I look up from myself, and remember.  He is there.  Always.  

Of course, because of the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, my favorite place to pray is any Church with a Tabernacle.  But, if I didn’t have that, I would only pray outside during Spring time.  Of course, it is high time for a healthy dose of Anne of Green Gables and her knack for explaining things just the way I feel:

“If I really wanted to pray I’ll tell you what I’d do. I’d go out into a great big field all alone or into the deep, deep woods, and I’d loop up into the sky--up--up--up--into its blueness.  And then I’d just feel a prayer” Anne Shirley (still my best book friend)

In the Spring, when I’m driving down West street, I just feel the prayer.  I breathe short gasps of surprise and know God is right there and knew that would be my reaction.  And that is a prayer.  A communication of joy and love between myself and the Creator.  No words necessary.  

Spring has been straight up dominoes.  It started with the daffodils and the magnolia trees, and I didn’t think I could take anymore goodness. 

In fact, I was partially relieved when the Magnolias started to molt, because it was almost too good for me to handle anymore.  And then, Spring pulled out the even more surprising big guns.  The cherry blossoms exploded.  These trees that I had only seen with their green plumage when I moved here, and then with their winter shroud, blew my little pea-sized brain.  All of the sudden, they just demanded our admiration at every corner.  Whispering as I passed them by, little did you know...

And then, when their glory could hardly be contained anymore, the petals did their dance to the earth.  But it wasn't like the dance of the leaves in autumn.  This dance is filled with hope, because even when these petals are gone, Spring and life go on and fill the earth with pink petal snow, and the glow of warm green leaves that are there to stay for a couple of seasons yet.  

And now, now it is the azaleas turn to say little did you know...because I have seen these lovely bushes in their green glory, but I had zero idea what their Spring brilliance was.

before

And they delight me every time I see them.  Their purple, red, pink, and white are the true form of what these colors were intended to be.  I find myself dreaming about Eden when I drive down my street to Church.  If it looks like this in a fallen world, what in tarnations could it possibly have been before we fell?  I know I wouldn’t be able to stand the beauty as I am now, because I can hardly stand the fallen version of Spring beauty.  

Once again, Anne Shirley comes to my aid:
“It’s so beautiful that it hurts me,” said Anne softly.
“Perfect things like that always did hurt me--I remember I called it ‘the queer ache’ when I was a child.  What is the reason that pain like this seems inseparable from perfection?...”
“Perhaps,” said Owen dreamily, “it is the prisoned infinite in us calling out to its kindred infinite as expressed in that visible perfection”  Anne’s House of Dreams

That about sums the Spring up for me.  It cannot help but offer hope to the hopeless, because even if things are not looking all shiny and loveliness within your life, what is outside of yourself, and what we still get to be a part of, is the ethereal beauty of God’s creation.  

This is His Love Song of hope after the winter.  After death there is Resurrection, for if He does this for the trees, and flowers, and sparrows, how much more will He do it for us?
“Even all the hairs of your head are counted. So do not be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows” 10:30-31

Happy Spring and happy weekend and happy life!  Cheers!