Easter Flowers

Tiny White Flowers

Easter Daffodils

Purple Pansies Smile

Dandelions in the Cracks

Sense of Wonder (August 2013)

Winter, dull and dead, numbs our sight with desert views of white or brown, ice or leaflessness. Yet, how can we doubt a Creator when spring brings life out of death?

How can we doubt salvation when we find the tomb empty?

Spring is another beginning; another cycle of blooms. It renews with tiny white flowers among greening blades of grass. Spring sprigs that could decorate the long hair of a woman instead decorate clumps of moss and dirt.

Then from earth, knife-like plants emerge, arrows pointed to the sky. Blue-green stalks bud, and on Easter morning the first daffodils bloom on Elmira Pond, defying deer, moose and gophers.

Beneath winter snows, pansies grip green. How they do it, I can't explain, but drifts of snow recede and the diminutive plant, stunted and flowerless is green. Despite wind, rain, frost and heavy mist that rolls across this valley it pushes purple flowers to bloom from its stubby green mound of leaves and stems.

Pansy faces smiling in their Sunday best.

Dandelions emerge from cracks between driveway and walkway to remind us that our modern concretions do not rule over creation. It's an odd thing to battle dandelions, beloved by bees and children who know how to weave chains of flowers.

Somehow we have lost track of the beauty and magic of dandelions--bitter greens aid the digestion; wine from yellow flowers boosts the heart; and blowing dandelion seeds is a wonder that every child needs to experience.

We celebrate Easter with the joys of knowing, "He has risen."

Even if we can only comprehend the undeniable blooms present after a season of death.