Colors of May

Cheery bold redbud,

shadowy evergreen,

wispy baby birch fingers

   dusted emerald yellow,

distant mountain aquamarine

   dulled in milky haze,

sun shifting open white folds of clouded sky.

Everything is New and Wonderful

The weather was beautiful today. And I am guardedly optimistic that I am recovering from the most recent flareup of what I call my "rheumatism," which put me in bed and in some significant pain over the past couple of weeks. Rest and patience do appear to be the best medicine for preventing a relapse (at least for the past several years). I'm glad that my present circumstances permit me to be flexible and to moderate my activity and step back when I feel the need to.

Exercise is important, of course, when I can manage it. I was able to enjoy today's weather and walk around the neighborhood a bit. It is easy to forget how lovely it is here in the Shenandoah Valley, but today everything looked new and a little wonderful.

Down the block, a road leads to the commercial area of town.

Of course, that can be explained in part by the fact that Spring is ripening into a green and growing Summer. It is as if you can just stand still and hear the leaves drinking in the sun and the grass drawing up to the sky.

I hope it was a peaceful Sunday for everyone.

Sunset is well after 8 PM, leaving the air warm in the lingering light of dusk.

Cherry Blossoms and Holy Week Together: Must I Be Sad?

If I take their picture, will they last forever?

The cherry blossoms are finally in their glory.

I saw the pictures from the banks of the Potomac river in Washington D.C., but we have them here too, 70 miles away, lining Main Street Front Royal and popping up in clusters, here and there, all over town.

They are always a sign that Spring is taking hold. Some types have the cherry streaks, but many are bright white, as if the touch of warm air has transformed the very snow into flowers.

I realize that the lovely weather of recent days is going to cool off this week, and even bring some frost. Poor folk in the northeast and midwest are even supposed to get more snow! Oh, but it will melt right up.

While life bursts all around us, we walk the path of Holy Week. Perhaps that seems incongruous. Spring has finally come, and now we must be gloomy and think about death?

At this time of year, life is new and fresh and full of promise, but only for a season. The promise is fulfilled in growth and fruit and harvest, and then there is the sleep of Winter again. The beauty of things wounds us with longing. It whispers "forever" to our hearts and then it fades. Perhaps we should just not think about all that and simply enjoy the flowers. Still, the flowers will fade. The time will pass. The "forever" that life whispers... where in this world can we find it?

Holy Week is not a time to brood upon death. Death haunts us all the time (whether we brood or not). Death presses everywhere against the limits of our lives, in the exhaustion of our paltry loves, in the inexorable advance of weakness as all the seasons pass and the beauties fade.

Holy Week does not come to haunt us with death. It comes to awaken us to a greater hope.