Megan Jackson's Blog
Spring / 04.02.10, 12:36 PM
When I was in high school I came up with this seasons theory about myself. I decided that my general mood and process as a human being followed the patterns of the seasons of the year.
Summer, I decided, was the hyper (and, well, lazy) season, full of fun and lying around doing nothing. In Summer I would be energetic and colorful and open to new possibilities. I would wear skirts and flip-flops and go to the supermarket without doing my hair or putting in contacts because I simply didn’t care.
I love fall. In fall, I would be excited and bookish and thrilled about the transition of seasons. I would be interested in learning everything, interested in people, feel incredibly intelligent, start writing again. That was fall.
In the winter, I would die a little. Winters have always been marked by self-deaths in my life, deaths of ideas or relationships or optimism or excitement. Winter is a sort of hibernation inside myself. I get quieter and less willing to be a people person.
But spring…. was like waking up after a long, long nap. As the trees grew back into leafyness and the weather got warmer, I would sort of click back into myself again. Every spring was like a rebirth of myself and my life.
I don’t think I’m the only one who goes through this sort of seasonal transformation, because I’ve been reading the other Mission Year blogs, and there seems to be a general waking-up across the board.
Winter in Mission Year is really difficult. The weather sucks (if you’ve been following weather on the East Coast, you know that Philly got DUMPED ON in February), the people stay inside, the days feel long, the community begins to experience more conflict and moves into a less feel-good stage and more into real, flawed community made of real, flawed people. For me, winter was a lot of coming to terms with my own ugly brokenness, my flaws, all the things in me that are mucky and disgusting and that I desperately need saving from.
But I can feel spring in the air…. as I write this I can see the first blossoms of the season on trees and I am wearing a bright skirt. I may not be as peppy as I used to be (seriously, have I gotten boring?) but I am beginning to embrace the beauty of the world, the beauty of God, and the beauty of me. Things that I have struggled and struggled and struggled with are coming into more clarity, and acceptance is becoming a theme in my thinking.
Nothing is settled in my life, and that can be kind of (read: really) stressful, but while winter is a season of waiting and being still, spring seems to be a season of seeing things creep into being. What do I want to do? I don’t know, but there’s a peace in feeling things stirring and becoming.
So, here’s to green and growing things. Here’s to spring, here’s to peace in newness.
Springtime Jesus
You, Springtime Jesus,
just as I’d settled down for winter,
you broke into my heart
and danced your love right across it
in a mad excess of giving.
Just as I’d got comfortable
with bare branches and unfeeling,
just as my world was neatly black and white,
there you were,
kicking up flowers
all over the place.
Springtime Jesus,
I tried to find a way to tell you
that there were places
where you could or could not dance.
I wanted to guide you on my paths
and have you sign the visitors’ book;
but you laughed right through my words
and sang to me your melting song,
causing sap to fire the branches,
causing the flames of buds
to flicker into green bonfires,
causing a windquake of blossom,
causing burstings, searings, breakings,
causing growth‑pain,
causing life.
Springtime Jesus,
the fullness of life can be frightening
and I’m lacking in courage.
It isn’t easy to live with a heart
that’s wide open to invasion.
Teach me, Jesus, how to move with you,
step for step, in your love dance.
Touch my fears with your melting song.
Gift me with your laughter,
and, in the mystery of your Springtime,
show me the truth of the blossoming Cross
—Joy Cowley
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