Monday Morning Music Ministry

3-23-26

This week is seeing multiple turnings of Nature’s pages, so to speak. The mid-Lenten season, looking toward Easter. Nowruz (the ancient Spring rite rooted in Zoroastrianism, celebrated from Kurdistan to Persia). Eid al-Fitr, the end of Ramadan. Even Daylight Savings. Not to mention the official beginning of Spring.

One can extrapolate. In many ways this is a season of newness, renewal, fresh starts. Nature is coming alive (I avoid the pagan anthropomorphic title of Mother Nature, except as I did as a kid, thinking of “her” as Mrs God by His design). Much of America experienced bizarre weather this past winter: severe cold snaps, blizzards, even tornados and thunder and lightning during snowstorms. Yet – to borrow the dispositive argument against global warming – the climate operates in normal cycles: cold and warm come and go; wet and dry.

“Everybody talks about the weather,” wrote Charles Dudley Warner, a collaborator of Mark Twain, “but nobody does anything about it.”

But Spring is about more than celebrations and adjustments to clocks and calendars. Anybody with eyes, and sensitivity to the smells and colors of outdoors, and thinner jackets and sweaters in their closets, appreciates the unique glories of Spring. It touches deeper than our sensory reactions, and lifts our hearts.

Spring is translated to elemental and visceral sensations. It is difficult not to be aware of apparently dead things coming to life, of revivals, of essential optimism. Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony is the theme song of the season. We see; we hear; we are aware of life in a new way.

But, with no offense meant against Spring, every part of the year, every cycle of Nature, has a theme (think of Vivaldi’s evocative Four Seasons). And the themes are wonderful. Special. God’s glory is manifested in myriad ways. My favorite season, frankly, is always the one that is about to happen. Turn, turn, turn.

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace (Ecclesiastes 3:1-8).

So in God’s power and wisdom, He created time and other wonders of the physical worlds. Nature, and seasons, therefore are spun off, so to speak. We enjoy good weather and endure bad weather; both are aspects of the infinite beauties of Creation. Do we give thanks enough for each glorious season, as we should? Do we accept “natural” disasters being termed “acts of God”?

These thoughts about Nature and the change of seasons can remind us that dark storms have sunshine on the other side of the clouds. That a tiny flower can push through cement and stone, and flourish. That rainbows follow the most violent thunderstorms.

Back to Spring, our current season. It is an affirmation that life is an essential component of… life. That is, death occurs and often seems certain; decay and corruption surround us. But so do rebirth and regeneration, just as surely. It is a cycle, of course, but whether you think that everything eventually dies or everything is capable of its own form of resurrection actually defines your outlook in uncountable ways about uncountable things.

Myself, I am a member of the life-affirming team. Dormant seeds sprout; skeletal plants burst forth in brilliant colors; bare fields and forests cloak themselves in all shades of green once again. And not only in Springtime, in fact for all time, we too can be born again. It is nature’s greatest possible gift, and God’s most wondrous miracle, of all.

+ + +

Click: Spring is Coming Lyric Video