We are grateful for the fact that Jesus the Christ was born in
Bethlehem and lived and talked and walked among men, and, being put to death, came forth from death and walked once more among
men....Life itself is a miracle, and surely that we shall live always is no greater miracle than we live at all; and surely
that we shall come forth from the grave is no greater miracle than that we first came forth from birth. And so we accept, as witnessed and recorded, the reality of the Resurrection of Jesus the Christ, through
whom we are heirs to everlasting life – and the resurrection of all men, for the same Power who gave us life here has
given us life hereafter.” Richard
L. Evans, Thoughts for One Hundred Days.
Witness
with me this joyful beginning of my seventy-third year. “What delights
sensitive souls in the spring,” wrote Dale Turner, “is the appearance of beauty, but it is more than that. It is hope beyond any visible reality. There
is something in the softness of the air, in the lengthening of the days, in the very songs and fragrances of springtime, that
caress and console us after the cold rains and dark days of winter and assure us that life is good and the best is yet to
be.”
Would
I wax nostalgic this April, missing the tall trees that surrounded me at Piney Mountain and Arbreux, living as I now am in
a town setting? Not at all, for other thoughts absorb my time. And in any direction as I go to work or market, the blessed hills surround and comfort me. Shades of spring green now cover them where heavy winter snow lay just less than a month ago. Migrating birds in flight remind me that life on our side of the planet has heard
reveille. Already the crocus and narcissus I sunk into the good earth are about to explode into color. Soon redbud and dogwood blossoms will display their glory over the woodlands of our Shenandoah Valley just
as they have done so for centuries at Resurrection time. That perennial event
does not escape me; it rings with authenticity – Life goes on, the wordless message of Life Everlasting.
Always the
month of April fills
All our world
with colored thrills
Leaves on a
tree on a low green hill
And crocus
blooms where the sun lies still.
Always with
eager hands she spills
Poems of Gold
on the daffodils,
And back of
the miracles we see
Is the caring
of God for you and me.
Isobel
McFadden