So…where did I see God’s beauty today? I saw it on a long walk, on a day off from work, in the golden afternoon light of a late-winter day that flirted with spring–the messenger of the silly season had arrived considerably ahead of schedule, knocking insistently on Winter’s door and calling out loudly for tired old Winter to just forget its to-do list for a while and come out to play. I caught God’s beauty in the faintest hint of saffron that I smelled when I got down on my knees to see if those pale purple crocuses of my neighbor’s, with their vibrant, saffron-orange centers, actually had a fragrance. As I walked further, God adorned my way with salmon-pink sprays of flowering quince. He courted me with burnished-rose blossoms of camellia; he lured me into his presence with tiny little forget-me-not blue flowers of weeds in the lawn grass. He whispered to me in the graceful architecture of leafless maples, dogwoods and crepe myrtles. He entertained me with the noisy song of a blue jay, and sent a robin fluttering across my path. He trumpeted his majesty to me in regal, red-berried flourishes of holly trees and nandina bushes. And a few days ago, on the 31st of January, he let me catch sight of an ornamental plum tree just coming into lilac-pink bloom. Yes…this is no doubt a false spring–it’s much too early to be the real thing–but nevertheless this false spring is a gift of true love from the Lover of my soul. And may God give us grace in the difficult winters of our lives to see that we can still endure with joy; we can still give him glory; we can still thank him that he never leaves us or forsakes us, even when life’s sorrows have chilled us to the bone and we must step gingerly over sheets of ice, even when our pale winter days pass slowly and seem devoid of any hope or purpose, even when we shiver, walking alone in the cold north wind on a long February night–for the days are still lengthening, and God’s promise still stands, of a world reborn in the coming season of warmth and light, when love will come again, like wheat that springeth green. Amen.