Sunflowers and strawberries ahead.

It is March and there are crocuses(/croci/crocus) and the sun is shining in the morning and the other day I didn't wear a coat one time. Fit as.

A mixture of consumerism and biology means humans aren't given the option of flying south or rolling into a ball for those five cold, dark months between November and March. Life trudges on and so we must too. We go out in the dark and come back in the dark, as they say. I feel less certain in these weeks that my spring has been wound enough to get me through til tea. I think living for sleep is almost exactly the opposite of the life we were intended for and yet in December and January that becomes the goal more often than I would like. We go on, because we're British and that's what we do, but we moan (because we're British and that's what we do.) It can just all be a bit of a hard s l o g.


And then March comes. We regain our synchronicity with the created world and everyone and thing is waking up at the same time. Yes it's chilly but we say "it's bright". Yes it rains but we call them "showers". Everything is just a little bit more cheery. It's like we hadn't realised that we'd had our knuckles clenched during the cold and as we walk outside in Spring they seem to slowly release. Tension we didn't know we were storing is being released back into the ether. It feels a little bit like we are being made new with the flowers and the leaves. Everything is fresh, everything is clear. Everything, as I said, is bright.

I'm not sure if this will quite make sense, but in my head there is quite a beautiful likeness that can be drawn between what's happening under the ground and what's happening above the ground about now. Because under the ground there are bulbs and seeds that are waiting to shoot. They've been planted in anticipation and now they're waiting for their moment. Whilst the gardner who set them knows exactly what is to come, most of the rest of us haven't a clue. And yet despite not knowing where they are or what exactly they will look like we still trust in the good things to come and that there are sunflowers and strawberries ahead.

Which is a little bit like us who tread the soil. My hope is renewed in the sunshine that there is a great big God who knows what will happen and when. He knows the times and the places, He knows where we're going and also how we get there. I don't. Not the foggiest. All I can know is where I am now and from where I have come. Yet, because of this big gardner in the sky, I still have absolute confidence that there are sunflowers and strawberries ahead.