Hostas with the most-est

What an amazing season spring is! One day the grass, trees, bushes and other plants are brown, dry and easily crunched between your fingers. And, the next day it rains and thunders a bit and voila! Everything is green. It’s like all the plants have gotten together and decided to cooperate. It’s a symbol of the best team spirit I’ve ever witnessed. Everything has sprouted overnight.

Our house backs up to Lost Creek and in the winter, although hundreds of trees and bushes line the creek bed and shelter us from our neighbors’ prying eyes and the roaring traffic of 13th Street, they are leafless. We can see AutoZone from our back deck and it’s at least a quarter mile away from our house.

However, add a little rain and flip the “spring” switch and a green blanket of grass, budding trees, bushes and colorful flowering plants have burst forth. What a wonderful sight.

Every year just when I seem to have lost my faith in photosynthesis, and I utter the words to my husband, Joe, “surely, our lawn won’t come back,” it happens. It’s like a big “aha” to my senses and a wonderful reminder during Lent. Out of death and chaos comes new life. Out of debris and wetness springs forth tulips, daffodils, crocus, iris and much more. The sun shines later each day. The smell of grilled steak and hamburgers waft through the neighborhood and childrens’ laughter trickles into open windows. And rabbits and birds search for tasty morsels in the grass.

These life-filled elements of spring form a chorus that ushers in a new season, the season of Easter. A reminder that death is not the end of the journey but an entry into a new season with infinite resurrection possibilities. That the Creator of Life can create something out of nothing; beauty out of ashes. Life from death. God – thank you for life, ever new.