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
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