My friend Karen used to say, “What’s the big deal?  Spring happens every year.  So what.”

And then, a few months later, God burst open in her heart like a white apricot tree– and she hasn’t ignored one blossom since.

Here in New Mexico, I’m stunned again by the crazy, impossible wildness of flowers and leaves bursting open in the desert.  I don’t want to miss a single budding tree or plant.  I even jog an extra block just to see the neighbor’s quince bush in bloom.

Yet this season I’m more aware than usual that these miracles don’t actually appear out of nowhere.  The springtime celebration emerges from whole circle of the year, and the whole cycle of risking and living and dying.  Resurrection is real, in the wholeness of life.  Even when the flower dies, it may become the mother of bulbs or seeds.  Loss, fear, and drought are real too, yet held in the fullness of life and its cycles of fruit.

Although I know all this truth in my bones, some days my life or work feels so tough I forget that the green leaves always return.  I want to keep practicing (and practicing) full-cycle, heart-open faith.  I want to remember (and remember) the astonishment of Easter, wholeness, and spring.

–Melanie

Celebration Art Print available

Celebration details