Spring is my favourite time of the year, now. As the seasons transform our surrounds, they each become my preferred! The colours and grace of autumn always capture my imagination, and I love the call to inner stillness that winter brings. There’s something lovely about looking at the garden and seeing everything stripped away. And then there is the joy and freedom that screams summer – days of light and for many of us, a holiday time. So, I have this habit of proclaiming each season my absolute favourite – until the next unfolds.
The seasons have much to teach us, and something I notice about spring is the gradual transformation it brings. One side of the garden may have a tree in full blossom while the other remains dormant: a reminder, perhaps, that new growth will emerge when the conditions are right. And the deciduous trees change gradually: one branch in bud, another in full bloom. In literature, spring often becomes the backdrop for transformation, and we may recall examples from scripture. ‘For now the winter is past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth; the time of singing has come (Song of Songs 2:11-13). In faith traditions, spring is tied to resurrection, liberation and grace. And in everyday life, it is a reminder that even after the longest, darkest night new life will emerge. The dawn will break. New life, albeit sometimes with a shoot of fragility, will emerge.
And it is also swirly and messy. The peace of morning sunshine can move quickly to a day of squally wind. A drizzle may call for an umbrella only to be met a few moments later with clear sky. It is a big, hope filled, messy, impact transformation time.
In his letter announcing the Year of Hope, (Bull of Indiction of the Ordinary Jubilee of the Year 2025) Pope Francis wrote that –
Everyone knows what it is to hope. In the heart of each person, hope dwells as the desire and expectation of good things to come, despite our not knowing what the future may bring.
There is something strangely comforting about this idea that even though we don’t know what the future will bring, our hearts can dwell in hope. It is also a reminder that hope, much like spring, can be unpredictable – sometimes gentle and quietly present, other times bold and demanding our attention. Hope doesn’t require certainty, it asks only that we stay open to possibility, trusting that fresh beginnings are always within reach, even if they arrive in unexpected ways. Another tool to help us make sense of the meaning of life.
Thomas Merton, one of the great spiritual thinkers, shared his thoughts about faith and the meaning of life in his writings. When we read Merton we enter the world of a person whose life was transformed. After a colourful early life, he became a Trappist monk, and lived in relative austerity – some scholars think as atonement for his early life about which he repented greatly. Merton provides a clue about transformation and hope:
You do not need to know precisely what is happening, or exactly where it is all going. What you need is to recognise the possibilities and challenges offered by the present moment, and to embrace them with courage, faith and hope.
Our twenty-first century minds and hearts find it difficult to accept mystery, I think. We want to know what is going on. We are determined to get to the truth of everything, to find out how things work so that we can fix them for next time. But the truth behind transformation in challenging times means that sometimes there isn’t a clear fix, direction or way. Sometimes it’s a stumble in a world that seems dark and hostile. Sometimes there’s a step between challenge and embrace where we just need to sit and allow the world to swirl.
And I think of the person of Jesus who transforms countless numbers of people through his presence. A teacher, healer, friend his influence continues to shape history and the human heart. And from time-to-time we have a glimpse of what the spirit of hope looks like in the world. Perhaps this is the gift that spring offers. The spring imagination reminds us that from the barest of branches new life can emerge, that light always follows dark, that life always follows death and that God’s presence is always near. Eventually the wind will cease, refreshing rains will fall, the blossoms will bloom and all will be well.
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Anne says:
Thanks Cathy, for this reflection.