Sometimes Being in the Moment = Being Aware of Our Hopes for the Future

Nothing that demonstrative, I suppose, but the yellow spray-painted rectangle of grass captured my attention on one of my morning walks this week. What in the….??

And then I remembered. Yes, the city ensures that there are beautiful, copious wildflowers along the trail each spring. And to ensure that beauty in a few months, its time to plant them now.

So the lawn crew had marked the space the day before, scattered the seeds, and ensured that they wouldn’t accidentally mow over their hopes between now and springtime.

And so it is with us; the beauty we long for so often takes planning. Even if that planning is a spiritual practice to learn how to recognize and appreciate the beauty that is already present all around us. Especially if we’re hoping to create some beauty that requires some intervention, some discipline, some protection on our part.

Its fitting, I believe, that that planning, in this case, starts in the winter.

In the darkness, the cold, the dormancy.

For it is those seasons when we recognize what we’re missing, what we pine for the most. It is those seasons when the longing for hope and light and beauty call out to us loudly enough that we are compelled to do something about it.

May your winter season be filled with festivity and celebration of what is, yes. And may it also be filled with some intentionality about what is to come.

What takes time.

And discipline.

And grace.

Always,

Alison