#9 Sunrise and Spring
The wind howled all last night and the temperature dropped forty degrees, sending us from balmy t-shirt weather back to our winter jackets. After being cooped up inside most of the day, I had to get out and stretch my legs. My hands quickly retreated into jacket sleeves and my unprotected ears got colder than they had been all year. But what a magnificent day! There were daffodils everywhere, and pansies, and flowering trees just making the transition from bright white and pink to gauzy green. The sky was a soft gray and grayish-blue and white, and the wind had everything moving. Spring had taken hold. There was no turning back.
It reminded me of those truly special early spring days of my childhood. My parents would wake us in the dark, we would bundle up and gather blankets together, pile sleepily into the car and drive through the darkness to a house on a hill above the Hudson River. We would climb up a path through the woods to an open place where others were already sitting, quietly make our little warm nests, and settle down in the darkness to watch for the dawn.
It was a magical time, the only day of the year when I paid attention as the birds woke and the world came alive, as I listened with others and watched the darkness yield to light. Finally a rim of color would appear on the opposite hill, reflecting in the river below, and the sun would come up. Then we would shake hands, make our way back down the path to the house and a potluck breakfast, and be home by the time we were normally waking up. There were Easter baskets and the regular morning service as well, but it was the sunrise service that had my heart.
I remember one year when the sky was completely overcast. Though we never saw the sun that morning, the evidence of its presence surrounded us as night turned to day. It was a special time, a reminder that not all the clouds in the world can stop the day from coming--just as not all the wind in the world can blow away the spring.
It would be well if we could be as sure of people’s goodness as we are of the sun and the seasons. Sometimes a person’s goodness shines out in glory. Sometimes we can only catch glimpses of it in the midst of blowing clouds. Sometimes the cover is so thick that we can’t see it at all. It is easy to worry and wonder, about our goodness, about the goodness of others. Yet deep in my bones I know that we can count on it being there, visible or not--as surely as spring follows winter and the sun rises every morning over the Hudson.
Pamela Haines
Philadelphia, 4/03
An offering in response to Column #8:
At a peace rally here on the first day of the war on Iraq, a woman spoke who has spent quite a bit of time in Iraq over the past 6 months. She asked an Iraqi woman there what message she would like to send to the American people. The woman said (not a direct quote):
Tell them to love life. We are all one people, one humanity. Right now it is our destiny to suffer war and terror in Iraq. This is not your destiny at this moment. So it is for you to love life. Only by loving life will we be motivated to protect it for ourselves and for all humanity. This is the root of peace. Love life.
An offering in response to Column #7:
Your image of living "all the way to the edges..." immediately put me in mind of a balloon. Living all the way to the edges is to fill the balloon with air, reaching out, expanding, filling your space. It's as though your rightful space in the world is the space you occupy when the balloon is fully inflated. When you don't occupy your rightful space, however, the balloon is deflated, collapsed, and space that is really yours, now vacated by the balloon, is a vacuum, inviting others, unwittingly, to step into it.
Arthur Larrabee
It reminded me of those truly special early spring days of my childhood. My parents would wake us in the dark, we would bundle up and gather blankets together, pile sleepily into the car and drive through the darkness to a house on a hill above the Hudson River. We would climb up a path through the woods to an open place where others were already sitting, quietly make our little warm nests, and settle down in the darkness to watch for the dawn.
It was a magical time, the only day of the year when I paid attention as the birds woke and the world came alive, as I listened with others and watched the darkness yield to light. Finally a rim of color would appear on the opposite hill, reflecting in the river below, and the sun would come up. Then we would shake hands, make our way back down the path to the house and a potluck breakfast, and be home by the time we were normally waking up. There were Easter baskets and the regular morning service as well, but it was the sunrise service that had my heart.
I remember one year when the sky was completely overcast. Though we never saw the sun that morning, the evidence of its presence surrounded us as night turned to day. It was a special time, a reminder that not all the clouds in the world can stop the day from coming--just as not all the wind in the world can blow away the spring.
It would be well if we could be as sure of people’s goodness as we are of the sun and the seasons. Sometimes a person’s goodness shines out in glory. Sometimes we can only catch glimpses of it in the midst of blowing clouds. Sometimes the cover is so thick that we can’t see it at all. It is easy to worry and wonder, about our goodness, about the goodness of others. Yet deep in my bones I know that we can count on it being there, visible or not--as surely as spring follows winter and the sun rises every morning over the Hudson.
Pamela Haines
Philadelphia, 4/03
An offering in response to Column #8:
At a peace rally here on the first day of the war on Iraq, a woman spoke who has spent quite a bit of time in Iraq over the past 6 months. She asked an Iraqi woman there what message she would like to send to the American people. The woman said (not a direct quote):
Tell them to love life. We are all one people, one humanity. Right now it is our destiny to suffer war and terror in Iraq. This is not your destiny at this moment. So it is for you to love life. Only by loving life will we be motivated to protect it for ourselves and for all humanity. This is the root of peace. Love life.
An offering in response to Column #7:
Your image of living "all the way to the edges..." immediately put me in mind of a balloon. Living all the way to the edges is to fill the balloon with air, reaching out, expanding, filling your space. It's as though your rightful space in the world is the space you occupy when the balloon is fully inflated. When you don't occupy your rightful space, however, the balloon is deflated, collapsed, and space that is really yours, now vacated by the balloon, is a vacuum, inviting others, unwittingly, to step into it.
Arthur Larrabee
posted by Pamela Haines | 3:24 PM
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