SPRING 2008I have been drinking a lot of smoothies lately, made with yogurt and fruit – home canned – the captured taste of last summer’s blackberries, blueberries, and peaches. The smoothies bring back to me the sweet sunshine of August, the smell of orchards, the lazy afternoons sipping iced tea and writing poetry by the lake.
These reminders of summer are good. But I am no hater of winter. I love walking through January mornings, with their crisp bright light and their sharp smell of dry leaves, ice, falling snow.
I feel safe and warm on these walks, with several layers of clothes swaddling my body, protecting me from sometimes fierce winds and dropping temperatures. And I am taking winter photographs these days (bare trees and snow flakes and frozen streams) , which, in the hot humid days of August, will remind me of these sharp fresh days of winter, just as the canned fruit reminds me of the fullness of summer.
We have all been given two great gifts of perception: our ability to live fully in the present, taking in the changing seasons with all our senses; and our ability to remember clearly the past, its essence enriching our present moments, “Now” is so much richer because we carry mementos of “then.” We can luxuriate at the exact same instance in both the bounty of sensations of this moment, and the harvest of sensations from our past. We can praise God for a beauty and a wonder that sometimes seems endless and complete and perfect.
By living both in the “then” and the “now”, my spirit is constantly filled with love and delight for the Creator, for all creation, for myself, for others. There is a Spirit that delights in the circles of life: the rotating moon and sun and stars, the changing seasons, the flowering and the ripening of fruit. As a song says, and I paraphrase, “I am riding on a carousel. The painted ponies go up and down.” And I am delighting in the wonder and the glory of this exciting and beautiful ride.
Sondra Ball
Clerk, Salem Quarterly MeetingRETURN TO TABLE OF CONTENTS
Last modified:
Tuesday, February 19, 2008 at 11:04 PM
