Come, gentle spring
Note: This column by the Rev. Harold Blake Walker was published in the April 13, 1980, Chicago Tribune. Walker, longtime pastor of First Presbyterian Church of Evanston, wrote a religion column for the Tribune from 1957 through 1980. He died in 2002.
The invitation of James Thompson is welcome: “Come gentle Spring! Ethereal Mildness, come!” Possibly it will come “slowly up this way,” but come it will to renew the hope and faith of the world. After our “winter of discontent,” fraught with wars and rumors of wars and tortured by anxieties, the gentle mildness of spring offers an anodyne, a refreshing wind of spiritual revival.
Carl Sandburg wrote thoughtfully of “The people so peculiar in renewal and comeback, You can’t laugh off their capacity to take it,” as if, like nature, we endure our winters of strain and distress and then recuperate, pushing on to newness of life. Somehow “the learning and blundering people will live on” into new springs and summers. Our anxieties and fears subside when tulips push up from the ground and robins come back from the south.
A squirrel is romping in a tree outside my study window, while a chickadee scolds from a nearby perch. Only yesterday the two were subdued, seeking refuge from the winter cold. The chill wind of winter is but a memory now, pushed north by balmy breezes from the south. Some random snow may yet come again, a last threat of the tired winter, but it will not last; the “gentle spring” will see to that.
The recent rain has soaked the earth, pushing worms to the surface to provide a feast for the feathered flocks. Children splash in puddles on the streets to the dismay of their elders, while autos, hitting water-filled chuckholes fling spray in all directions. Street repair crews have their work defined for days to come.
As spring comes on, our winter coats come off. We relish the out-of-doors and the chance to work in our gardens, loosen the dirt around our rosebushes, and clear away the refuse of winter. It is a joy to prepare the ground for planting zinnias and dahlias, petunias and gladiolas and watch the budding of trees and bushes.
Windows in our homes, grimy and smudged by the dust and the snow of the winter, invite washing and polishing to restore their shine. Some painting needs doing where the weather eroded the covering and wood shows through. We don’t mind the work after months of being cooped up inside. It is all part of the ritual of spring.
The world seems brighter, too, with the somber hues of winter gone. The problems remain, to be sure, inflation and rumors of war, unemployment and school ills, but they seem less acute in the spring. Problems are just as real, but we see them in the light of our own revived spirits. We are now more disposed to cope with what we must.
Moods of despondency lift when sunsets glow in the western sky and gentle winds blow from the south. When sailboats dot the blue lake with their wings of white, our frustrations fade and our fears subside. When cardinals sing and gold finches flutter in the bushes and trees, we can’t harbor the anxieties that have thwarted our powers.
In the spring’s long evening twilight, it is easy to believe in God and feel the warm glow of His presence. As the sun seems to draw closer to drive away the chill, so God seems to come nearer to revive our flagging spirits and renew our zest for life. When the sap begins to run in the trees and all nature sings, we feel the wonder of rebirth ourselves. Our aspirations and our hopes revive and we know that God is good.
The rhythm of life is endless: Winters of discontent are followed by springs of renewal. After discouragement and distress, “the people so peculiar in renewal and comeback” find refuge in knowing that spring comes on forever with inexorable renewing power. If God seemed dead while the winds of winter blew and our ills accumulated, He comes alive for us in the newness of life that dawns in the spring.