Hallo May

It is May and the mayflowers shine brightly overhead as the hawthorn roofs the space I sit in.  Its baby leaves of yellow-lit green have found their fullness now, maturing in a month to maternal bearers of blossom.  The buttercups have joined the wash of wildflowers tangling in the grass, and the blue of the bluebells still lights dim corners.  The yellow palette is now brushed with white as cow parsley and hawthorn line country roads like bridal paths, and horse chestnut and lilac lift their blooms on greens and gardens.  The white clematis has hung itself in a curtain from my roof so that each time you pass the back door its scent intoxicates you.  It is May and the greening of the trees is now completing, waiting for the ash to fill out its feathers, ready for the triumph of summer.

May is my birthday month and one of my favourites as all the trees are ready, and the peony bursts its big, showy buds at the end especially for the occasion.  Why is it, then, that as a child I thought it a boring time for a birthday?  Why did fear loom so large?  Why didn’t I trust the goodness that surrounded me?  And how did the spool of life unwrap that darkness and deliver me into the light?

The length of life is a marvel, holding a myriad of moments that can transform the hardest heart, wooed and unsettled by God.  There is such generosity in each new day as the night wipes away the foolishness of failure and enables us to begin again with a fresh wind blowing.  There is such forgiveness as the earth buries the blight of the past and brings new life from its soil.  There is tenderness and toughness as we should require, the blossom brought forth from the wood.  And there are people to act as friends for our heart offering insight or nurture or cutting loose.