Fast Forwarding into Spring

By the Rev. Bruce W. Gray
​​Among the best parts of my job when I was Canon to the Ordinary for the Diocese of Indianapolis was that I got to spend a major portion of my time on the road, visiting congregations and other ministries around the diocese. Consequently I got to see the seasons unfold in fast motion, as I drove from Indianapolis southward and saw spring unfold more and more as each mile rolled by. In the one week I  saw daffodils blooming in sight of the Ohio River in Jeffersonville, fields of wild flowers showing their glory outside of Washington, and all sorts of trees and shrubs blooming in the old neighborhoods of Vincennes.

Driving northward the seasons would go a bit backward, as winter still held onto the barren fields and bare trees. Yet all of this brought a sense of joy to me, not just because for the last 18 years before returning to Indiana I experienced the confused plant life of Southern California, which never can know for sure by the weather whether it is time to bloom or bust, but also because it is such a vivid reminder of God's creative beauty in the world. As many people have said for centuries in different ways, I enjoy gardening, but God really knows how to do it spectacularly. 

Seeing the change of seasons, whether backwards or forwards, in a matter of a couple hours, rather than in the deliberate time of nature, gives me perhaps a twentyfirst century nature experience, one that is condensed and ready for quick consumption. Maybe it would be like trying to do Lent using just one Sunday instead of the full forty days. It seems that quick journey would make Christ's resurrection on Easter not as significant to us, not as deeply felt.

I hope even on the days when all I do is take a walk around my neighborhood or drive no more than a handful of miles I will still pause and notice what God is doing all around me with the daffodils and budding trees. Then perhaps I will also remember to notice all that God is doing in that other part of nature that is all around me, the human species, and appreciate in my fellow children of God what God has been up to with them. Hopefully I will notice the various ways in which God has nurtured them to be as beautiful as spring flowers, even if their bloom is springing from some gnarled branches scared by life. Then truly I will be seeing the power of Christ's resurrection embodied, embodied by people at times desperately in need of new life and hope, and provided that by God through our own human nurturing efforts to help one another.