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.

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Click: Spring is Coming Lyric Video

4-3-17

A guest essay by one of my favorite writers, Leah C Morgan

Winter serves its purpose necessary for cycles of life and growth. Including sorrow and darkness. But no one mourns its departure. There are no weeping farewells, no fierce clinging to its coattails. Winter’s last cold breath could easily be mistaken for a communal sigh of relief.

But Spring. . .

Spring is like hope, often suppressed by doubt and crushed by fear before finally bursting out of the barrenness with such lush beauty we would think it audacious if it were a woman crossing the landscape.

Or a dream on the horizon.

But Spring is so universally pined after, we allow her to paint the town in pastels and festoon it with flowers. To declare a new season and prophesy a resurrection of all dead things. We are so in need of warmth, we want to believe.

Snow comes just as we’re tempted to forget coats and gloves; and we’re buried again in self-doubt, certain that winter is eternal. And that second chances, green buds, and fresh starts are myths.

Then the smallest patch of sunlight shines its way indoors, warming our faces. A song of warbled notes reaches our ears, and the perfume of living things wends its way to our senses. Our hearts thaw. Something flutters within and pushes its way forward like a new beginning.

And there we are against all odds, in spite of the dead branches and brown grass, joining the parade, waving banners, and getting all caught up in the longing. We believe in the getting up, in the rising again.

If forgotten bulbs buried beneath the frozen ground can resurrect their remembrance, and dormant plants survive long months of deprivation, if distant birds are spurred to make lengthy migrations in expectation of better days, and insects lie quietly in wait for a feast about to commence, how can the human heart settle for dearth? The very bowels of the earth offer up an invitation to rejoice. To hope. To muster up enough courage to try again.

“To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven” (Ecclesiastes 3:1). Spring is the season to put away the wool and furs, the weighty things that make for despair.

It is the reminder that buried things are not always dead things, and that dead things can live again.

Spring is the occasion to pray for the miraculous, for rebirth and resurrection. It is the opportunity to enjoy perpetual youth. Nothing is so young as new life, and new life can sprout in the faith of a fertile mind, coming to life in a fresh idea. It can spring up in the purpose of heart, taking the shape of brilliant creativity.

Buried talents, forgotten intentions, failed attempts – they all want to be born again, and Spring makes the yearning reasonable. If daffodils can fan out their pretty bonnets after keeping still for a year, what unexercised muscle of faith might be stretched out in the light of understanding?

The time for understanding has come. Flamboyant Spring steps forward on a pale, monochromatic stage to pantomime the Gospel in living color. The Old Man Winter is past, and now a light shines in the darkness, its transformative power producing new life. The fields and forests are born again, their naked knolls and branches clothed in glorious wardrobes. They develop, mature, producing fruit and dropping seeds. The seeds are buried, left to die and decay, before shedding their form to be resurrected, coming forth from the ground in a new body.

“Sown in weakness, raised in power” (I Corinthians 15:43). How we begin is not how we’re destined to remain.

A sweet, scented breeze is blowing, whistling a melody. And a voice that sounds a lot like Spring sings:

My beloved spake, and said unto me, Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.

 The fig tree putteth forth her green figs, and the vines with the tender grape give a good smell. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away” (Song of Solomon 2:10-13).
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Click: Rise Again