We only know spring is serious in its affections when we hear the faint, sweet mating calls of the tree frogs that make their home in our waterways. Weighing just over one-tenth of an ounce and only an inch long, these “spring peepers” (Pseudacris crucifer) fill the evenings with an ever expanding chorus of hope.
Turning of Days p. 21
There are things in general revelation that are specific to certain geographies: the Appalachian spring peepers or the wide-open view of the thunder head visible from 60 miles away on the West Texas plains.
And yet the lessons that we are meant to have are there for us if we’ll look. We dare not bemoan our place in God’s providence, for there is beauty to be had despite the ugliness that man may foist on us or that we believe is before our eyes.
I will leave you with the words of Ruth Naomi Floyd in an interview she gave to Jonathan Rogers:
I’m blessed that my father’s grandmother, my great grandmother, lived to be 109 years old. She was the youngest of my great great grandmother, who was an enslaved African in America. At 6 feet, 2 inches tall, she was taller than any other human around. But unfortunately, to break her in every way as an example to the other slaves and communities, they made her become the mule that pulled the plow. So from sunup to sundown, this magnificent, handsome woman pulled the plow. And it didn’t make sense because it wasn’t productive. The mule could have done it much faster and more efficiently. By the time she was 28 years old, her spine was in the shape of an S, and she died. But my great grandmother doesn’t remember much. One of the things she remembers from her siblings telling her was that on the way, her mother—the woman, the human being, the life made in the image of God—walked from that place of dehumanization, the plow, to her cabin, and on the way searched for beauty. Whether it’s a pinecone, a blade of grass, a twig, a flower, whatever it was, she picked it up and put it on a saucer on the butcher’s block—which served as the table — and she would say, ‘Beauty is everywhere. You just have to look for it.’
The Habit Podcast
Lingering Over Leaves 