I found a bench in the sun and waited for my friend to walk the labyrinth. I had walked it first and wanted to give her time alone in it. Once she finished, she sat on a bench across from me, and we shared our experiences, which in the same labyrinth were very different from each other’s. 

There were large, barren trees in a ring around us.  I wasn’t paying much attention to them but my friend commented on the one behind me, whose crooked branch I was sitting under.  She had been quietly assessing if it was a dead branch and the likelihood of it falling on my head.  But then she noticed very small buds on the tree and realized it was safer than it looked.  She said,

“You really have to look hard for life.”

And that struck me as so profound and so applicable to more of life than just that one bare tree. 

Last week I wrote about being unable to see more than a car length ahead of us during a snowstorm.  But maybe you can actually see what’s around you.  You just can’t see life.  You have a clear picture and that picture is wreckage.  After the storm, that’s often what remains. 

I wonder as I wander through the fields of ash
Is there hope to carry on?

Jason Gray, “Even This Will Be Made Beautiful, Part 2“

Earlier the same day that I walked the labyrinth, I was walking from my house to the garage when a little pop of purple caught my eye.  Do you see it?

Here’s a close up.

Crocus

Life!  Among bare twigs and dead leaves.  I posted this picture to a Facebook contemplative photography group and wrote,

“One lone little crocus in my flower bed…that I didn’t plant.” 

That’s the even more beautiful part of seeing that flower – I didn’t plant it!

Life appeared all on its own.  I just had to be receptive to seeing it.

A woman replied to my post of the picture:

“Meant a lot to me to see this as we celebrate Good Friday and Easter … thank you.”

It was Good Friday that day and this just seemed so hopeful to me – and to her too.  The sun was shining and life was returning.  But I wonder…

After the storm, the ashes, the hard winter, do I usually look for life?  Or do I just mourn the loss?  Do I keep walking when the trees are bare?  Even though there are dead leaves wherever I put my foot next.  Do I hope, looking hard for signs of life?

Let us learn to appreciate there will be times when the trees will be bare, and look forward to the time when we may pick the fruit.

Anton Chekhov