Spring-Sick

a devotional for spring

Photo by Charles Tyler on Unsplash

the snows of March declare
that time has not forgotten you;

you can never run too fast 
or walk too slowly
for the Guiding Hand to pass you by.

the snows of March whisper:
take that second cup of coffee 
as a baptism,

take that impossible yawn
as a liturgy;

take your time
in every measure.

we kneel and bless the wisdom
of the holy snows
of March. 

Over the weekend, I woke up with a low-grade fever, shivers and aches, under unexpected and sagging snow clouds.

It was the loudest possible one-two punch—yet silent as the grave—for nature to tell me: “Slow…all the way…down.”

It's not entirely surprising, either. Last week, I finished up a twelve-week project over on my fiction newsletter, Talebones, that I didn't realize had been occupying so much of my mind and body and spirit until it was over. (Incidentally, this is also why I didn't manage to post a parable here last week; my apologies for that!).

As we all know: like a rubber band, you can only stretch so far until you snap.

I am always tempted to jump into the next thing. To wrap the last task up with a bow, check it off my list, and move on. I’ve always called that a healthy detachment, a sacred momentum. 

But sometimes…you just need to stop, take stock, and reorient. And if you don’t make that decision for yourself, forces beyond you can—and do—make it for you. 

And so, instead of launching headfirst into garden plans and new ideas and refreshing the house for spring, I find myself on the couch, resting, as inches of slushy snow pile up outside. An open-handed invitation to take the next steps with care instead of leaping, diving. 

It’s just a minor cold, barely even a sniffle. The slush is already melting. But it’s a holy pause, nonetheless. 

Soon the day is coming when I will invite spring into our home and land with my whole heart. When I will open wide the windows, dust the corners, take a fresh look at what must be done. There's a lot of work ahead.

But not yet. 

Of all her sisters, it seems to me that Spring is the season of all-in-good-time.

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