The Call of Springtime in the Fallow Days

We walk now in the coldest, the cruelest of winters, this winter, with its deep sorrows. But it will not always be this way, and we must believe this. We must know these things. We must know that in the renascent warmth of new spring, we shall find ourselves again, find the best, lost parts of us that had been forlorn while icy winds bite across our necks and kill the senses on cheeks and eyelids. It is in these days, the days that dawn darkly and end quickly, that the world seems entranced in black , and adrift. The days hopeless in scope and despairing of relief, bracketed by blown snow, ice, and winds that never seem to die. But spring puts the lie to this despair, and once more we emerge from our frozen stasis. In the celebration of our rebirth, when our limbs grow once again strong, our blood flows high, and there is joy and purpose in our days, we are once more as young as we ever were, as alive as we ever might be. So, do not think of the times when the bleak and desperate days will once again hold dominion over our time, over our souls. Do not choose to remember the lonely dark nights and the short grey days where clouds press down like damp, cold cloth and breath itself comes hard. Do not dwell on these barren times. Not now. Be willing to forget for a time, to embrace the delusion that life is warm and full and grand, that the soft new grass will feel full beneath our bare feet, that the reclaimed sun will infuse comfort and wellness through each pathway until it descends into a gentle nightfall. Be willing to forget for a time, even within the certainty that the cold days will come again, that nothing on this earth ever truly dies, that power and beauty and grace and strength and pleasure and love itself are forever haunted by flesh that grows weary, by spirits that seep into nothingness, by souls turned as numb as uncovered hands on a snowy winter night. By a disease that runs laughing through these cold days. Be willing to forget for a time the lost faces left behind through a comet’s fleeting arc. Believe for an instant that the virtuous and the holy hold sway forever in the newborn warmth of springtime, that gentility governs each action, that an abiding nobility beats within each breast and welcomes each new face into a community that will never die. Grasp the hand of God Himself, clasp His shoulder, and look deeply and fully into His infinite eyes. Do this in the promised rebirth of the warm and breathlessly golden days. Nothing on this earth ever truly dies.