State of the Union

“March comes in like a lion; goes out like a lamb.” Folk proverb

Hang on folks, Mother Nature’s stood the old saying on its head and March is coming in like a lamb. Oh, how sweet it is!

It was just a few days past that we were locked in nature’s deepest deep freeze, and now here we are…enjoying Minnesota’s Marchtime tropics. We’ve got sun and puddles and twenty-something bros in short pants stalking the aisles at Walmart. Our gloves are off, Our parkas are unzipped. We’re ready for what we hope is coming.

t’s not here yet. There’s not a robin in sight and the tulips are keeping their heads down, biding their time… But there no doubt, the times, they are a changing ,,, at 2:00 a.m. next Sunday, just a week from today.

It’s a welcome feeling. Truth is, about now we’re in need of a little gentling. For a lot of us it’s been a rough and bitter winter. A time of pain and anxiety, of deepening darkness, a long night of the spirit. Yet here we are on the cusp of the equinox…the dark struggling against an ever more insistent light, a light destined to prevail.

Seeing the end of more than seventy winters has given me a reluctant optimism. On the coldest, darkest day in January there’s no doubt that by July the snow will melt and the cold will be but a memory. It’s true enough to say that things are never so bad that they can’t get worse…but we also need to remember that, bad as they get, things do get better. There’s no such thing as a perfect world ,,, but just as the best of days will surely come to an end, the reverse is no less true.

So here we sit, hoping hard to see evidence of spring. It’s good to temper that hopefulness with the recollection that for most of human history spring was also a time of deep, often desperate, scarcity. The bounty of the harvest that sustained us through winter was all but exhausted and the first fruits of summer were still only hopeful visions of the future. Tight belts were pulled tighter, and reality tempered anticipation. But hope was far from unreasonable and experience fueled our plans for a better day.

Looking about and looking ahead, I’m surely no Pollyanna. I have no doubt that a change of weather is like to bring with it floods and droughts. The old saw put it well, “Pray for a good harvest, but in the meantime, hoe like hell.”

No doubt about it, we have a lot of serious hoeing to do.

But don’t be fooled, it ain’t summer yet. This wouldn’t be Minnesota without a blizzard in March and four inches of snow in April. We can still count on hearing the March lion’s growl and despair that the March lamb is only bound for slaughter. Yogi was right…”It ain’t over ‘til it’s over,” but let this warm respite inspire us to carry on and keep looking for the buds swelling on the lilacs.

Better days are coming.