R & B

This past weekend I devoted several hours to removing the last of the fall leaves from the flower beds. Raking and bagging is not among my favorite tasks. This stems back to my pre-retirement years when R and B ate huge chunks of my weekend free time. This fall is the first when I could rake and bag any day of the week without feeling as if I’d used all my leisure time working. I noticed this year my attitude has modified a bit.

First, I found it helped provide a bit of structure to a pretty unstructured life. I’m not used to “unstructured.” I’ve had to live all my life being very busy and very organized. It saps me. But, to suddenly wake up and know that almost every day is “my day off,” is unsettling a little. So having leaves to rake, leaves that kept relentlessly falling day after day and week after week, demanding that I get them off the deck and drive and out of the planting beds, was a nice bit of structure.

But Saturday, the second attitude adjustment popped up. As I was cleaning from under azaleas and evergreens, blowing and raking from pansy beds, wet, rich dirt was exposed. I kept thinking as I’d finished a section—“Ah, prepared for spring!” And in a few places, I unearthed the yellow green shoots of daffodils pushing up out of the cold, wet dirt. I noticed the azaleas both in front and back were budding up. Then I looked up. I’d been focused on the leaves on the ground, but now I glanced into the trees. I noticed the maple trees in the front yard had buds. My neighbor’s tulip poplar was pink and heavy with buds. Spring looked as if it were about to break out everywhere. New life, no longer just around the corner, was actually intruding into the bleak, cold winter.

So it is with the love of God. Just when winter seems to have settled into our lives for all eternity, God’s love intrudes. A friend calls, a letter arrives, an email pops up—a connection to hope and peace is made. Sometimes we need to rake a few leaves to find the signs of hope and love, other times we just need to look up.

Peace,

Jerry+