Finding Hope in Life's Cracks and Crevices. A Note From Jan.

Happily home. Yellow tulips on the kitchen counter say, “Welcome.” Everyone should have neighbors like Beth and Bill.  World changers through kindness.

Coat and mood lighter after venturing out on this first day of April. More puddles, less snow. Returned to package on the porch from ProFLowers. Pink, yellow and white tulips in a blue mason jar vase from Jenn (Gordon alum) and Mike. Like a springtime garden in a box. Our world’s blessed with alums like Jenn.

Bumps on branches say forsythia lived through the winter. Other creatures hopping about made it as well. Me too.

Read in the Boston Globe this morning about Blackpoll Warblers, song birds who make an amazing journey each fall. Imagine flying from the spruce forests of New England and eastern Canada across the open ocean to South America! “These slight birds, which typically weigh a little more than two quarters, accomplish this seemingly impossible feat by fattening up preflight, in some cases nearly doubling their body weight.” That I can imagine! They return to New England in late May or June. Who ever thought up “bird brain” as a negative!?

Researchers learned that “the non-stop leg of their journeys ranged from 1,410 to 1,721 miles.  Birds’ navigation systems are complex and draw on their genes, the moon, stars, and sun, and the earth’s magnetic field. Researchers still don’t know why they do it, but they know they can.” Anyone who stayed put through this past winter might suggest to the researchers why these warblers take off and fly south!

Gives me pause and sends me awestruck and grateful to God, creator/designer somehow, some way of such an amazing creature. Draws me to Matthew 6, one of God’s Springtime messages.

“Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable then they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these….Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”

Not exactly sure what “all these things” are but I know, by faith and the sighting of a Blackpoll Warbler in late May or June, that I can pack up worry along with all that thick winter clothing. It’s time for God’s flower and foliage show,  accompanied by birdsong. Today I’m in awe of the bird brain of a wee warbler and the signs around me that shout, ”Winter’s lost it’s grip.”

Springtime’s for soaring and sighting hope in life’s cracks and crevices.

Happily home on this first day of April. No foolin’.