Shake things up! Spring has arrived! Things are budding and blossoming all over the place. Winter has gone into retreat with its cold days and dry dead landscapes. The sun has begun to shine a little more brightly and the birds are chirping a little more loudly. It feels like no matter what is going on around us or what we might be dealing with on a personal or communal level, when springtime comes we can see new life all around us, new possibilities and new hope for change. It’s the natural order of things in the cycle of life. We begin to put our winter coats, blankets and heavy clothing away, and open our windows to take in the fresh clean crisp spring air. Everything breathes again in the spring. It’s refreshing but it only lasts a moment and then it’s gone and we are back to the realities of life, the struggles of the day and the same old arguments we have been having all winter long. We need to take this opportunity, no matter how fleeting the moment, to breathe in some fresh air, to hope for something different than what we’ve always had, to make a change (no matter how small) in the things we’ve always done that keep us bound up in thinking “we’ve got what we’ve got and that’s just the way it is!”

Mahatma Gandhi once said, “We but mirror the world. All the tendencies present in the outer world are to be found in the world of our body. If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. This is the divine mystery supreme. A wonderful thing it is and the source of our happiness. We need not wait to see what others do.” No. We need not wait to see what others do; we need to take responsibility for ourselves to make a change in some way, somewhere. Spring is the time for transformation of all kinds in nature and what we do in this moment when the winds of change are blowing like the pollen in the air, just might make all the difference in the world. We could seize the moment, this moment, to plant some seeds of change in order to transform the time we have ahead of us into something different than what we have left behind us. There are possibilities we perhaps have not considered. There are situations, relationships and conditions that need to be re-envisioned, configured or intentioned differently than ever before, and this moment may be just the time to make that happen.

If we are reflected in nature, and nature consistently and with seasonal regularity, transforms herself, there is no reason that we cannot do the same. There is a season for everything under heaven. Christians are about to celebrate the Resurrection. Jews are about to celebrate The Passover. Both are in honor of immensely transformative events in their respective legacies. The promise that comes with every new springtime season should not be underestimated or taken for granted. We have come through a long and tumultuous fall and winter season. We need to breathe in the refreshing and cleansing air of spring. We need to take the opportunity that this blossoming and rebirthing time of year affords us and look again with the eyes of the new spring, open up the windows, clear out the cobwebs and breathe again.