Living Resurrection

Dazzled

“…Still, what I want in my life

is to be willing

to be dazzled---

to cast aside the weight of facts

and maybe even

to float a little

above this difficult world.

I want to believe I am looking

into the white fire of a great mystery.

I want to believe that the imperfections are nothing---

that the light is everything---that it is more than the sum

of each flawed blossom rising and fading. And I do.

Mary Oliver

From ‘The Ponds’

I don’t know about you, but the coming of Spring after a long, dreary winter can still dazzle the socks off me. I’m just as much in awe of irrepressible life bursting out in glory as I was at ten. Just when I think the world is bound for hell, there’s nothing worth saving, and we all may as well just give up, Spring happens, and I go soaring away on the fair winds of hope. I’ll bet you do, too. I can’t imagine a fate worse than not being in awe of the sheer beauty of nature coming alive.

I was nine years old when I first saw the ocean. My grandparents came from Jefferson City, TN, and picked up my sister and me. We drove all day long to Myrtle Beach, SC, which at the time, was just a little village. I told them that if the ocean scared me, I was going to blindfold myself and jump in anyway. When we finally arrived, and I got my first look at the surging Atlantic, I turned to Mama and said, “I think I’m going to need that blindfold.” I was simply overwhelmed by the vastness of the ocean. I recall being painfully sunburned on that trip because I never wanted to leave the beach for a minute. I brought home about a thousand sandy sea shells and couldn’t shut my mouth for weeks. Too many stories to tell. I’ll bet you, too, remember your first glimpse of the ocean.

Spring is a reminder of the awesomeness of God’s creation. Summer is lush, and autumn is exhilarating, but spring is simply dazzling. It’s awfully hard to contemplate the downfall of humankind and the darkness of the economic climate when outside the window a red-bud is blasting forth with a billion lusty pink blossoms. I get so excited I want to shout, Alleluia! when I see the hydrangeas in my garden thrusting green leaves out of their brown, scaly skins. Spring is our reward for surviving the white death of winter. It is the truest resurrection.

                                                              In the Spirit,

                                                                        Jane