Photo and Commentary ©2024 by Shelley Schurch
Sunday, February 25, 2024
This year I’m documenting the firsts of the season. A couple of weeks ago we rounded a corner on our morning walk, and there were camellias in full bloom on three tall bushes. A few houses down we spied the first crocuses. Last week I saw a very ordinary retail business parking lot beautified by our first blossoming fruit tree. The next day I walked by a rhododendron blooming away. At each discovery I whipped out my phone to record the welcome sight.
Spring is edging its way in, and we greet it joyfully, even as we stock up on allergy meds.
While we say hello to the new season, which pays no attention to manmade calendars, I say a fond farewell to winter. I’m thankful it has not been a trying season, filled with weeks of icy roads and event cancellations and power outages. I’m thankful for its times of celebrations – Thanksgiving, Christmas, the New Year.
I’m also thankful for its beauty. In addition to all the lights and sparkle we humans add to its darkness, I’m thankful for its natural beauty. For many years I didn’t notice much, but then I looked closer and saw the trees.
Growing up in southeastern Alaska, I was most accustomed to evergreen trees, who were true to their name and did not become bereft of their finery in the fall. And so I was sad to see all the deciduous trees in our Seattle area lose their leaves in the fall, especially after many of them put on such a lovely show of fall color. Cottonwood, oak, dogwood, ash, birch, aspen, maple – all became stark and bare. Lifeless and bleak.
But one year my vision changed, and I had to change my vocabulary. I suddenly saw the beauty in their bones, hidden in summer by all their leaves. I now love the patterns they create against the changing canvas colors of the sky. I started murmuring contentedly about “the filigree of trees.”
I liked the rhyme sound, but I also hoped the word “filigree” meant what I thought it did – delicate, fine, intricate patterns. When I finally looked it up, here’s what Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary said: “a) ornamental openwork of delicate or intricate design b) a pattern or design resembling such openwork; a filigree of frost.”
Close enough. And I would rather gaze upon a filigree of trees than a filigree of frost!
I like mulling over how each season has its unique characteristics, brings its own blessings. I like how the change of seasons reminds me of our Creator, who changes not in His love and provision for us. And I like how He not only brings about the change in seasons, but how He also changed my view of winter trees from bleak and bare to beautiful filigree. Most of all, I’m head-to-toe grateful for His power to change not just my vocabulary, but my heart, and my future.
As we step out into this brand-new week, eyes wide open for all the spring signs, we keep our ears wide open, too, so they can hear this melody, as God sings it over us:
“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you . . .” (Ezekiel 36:26 NKJV)
And a second song:
“ . . . being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.” (Philippians 1:6)
He is with us always, all ways, walking us all the way Home.