Lisping "Spring, Spring, Spring."

Spring in Georgia is so amazing. Cool in the mornings and evenings and warm in the afternoons. When the dogwoods and the redbuds blossom, it begins, then the various azaleas bloom in pink and white and red. The leaves on the trees are such a tender, soft green. I notice the song of the birds for the first time in this new year. Catching the flash of their colors at the corners of my eyes. A thick dusting of pine pollen on everything. The combination is exhilarating. It is hard to keep your mind on other things. It makes you want to grasp the day in your two hands and shake it roughly. Or run down the street as fast as your legs will let you. As far as your legs will carry you.

Last Spring was strange. I was so caught up in the business of getting and spending that I lost my place in the glorious return of life. Last Spring was even better than normal and I almost missed it. I remember getting to the end of last Spring and realizing that I had almost completely ignored the season. What a loss.

When I was a young teenager, I remember opening the windows in my room in March or April and feeling the cool Georgia breeze washing over my face and arms. I remember I was wearing a light short-sleeved shirt and listening to Bob Dylan and Chicago and Brewer and Shipley on the stereo in my room. I could smell my dad grilling meat on the back deck and I could hear everyone laughing and talking downstairs, until someone finally called for me to come down and join the family for supper outside on the deck. What gloriously free moments!

The Masters, the Kentucky Derby and the Indianapolis 500. Those are the the points on the clocks of the season. When we come out doors to see the golfers competing among the azealeas of the Amen Corner, or watch the horses and jockeys running, stretching, struggling around the turns toward the finish, their multicolored patterns clashing against one another, or the power and speed of those Indy cars, as they chase one another around the track in West Indianapolis. Those are the mileposts of Spring.

This is the part of Wordsworth's poetry that really reaches me. I respond so completely to the changes in the natural world. And unfortunately it becomes too easy, at my age, to lose myself in the business of living, that I lose my place in life.

I must stop, from time to time, and immerse myself in the "lightness of being." The cares of the world can be so heavy. Thank God the regeneration of life is there to remind us that there is more to life than just the making of our daily bread. Amen.