Susan's Thursday morning note April 14, 2022 Quotes on Hope (Spring & Easter) (Click this link to read Happy Easter in foreign languages)
Good morning! The air so still, green shooting out of the ground, sounds from the geese, a lifted heart knowing Spring is about to make her arrival behind the curtain. Little glimpses of what is coming. Color. Life. Months of preparation behind the scenes under the soil and in the skies as the flowers begin making their appearances from the script and the birds enter the scenes in the backdrop. Spring. What a word bringing hope. Bringing the reminder to look towards the heavens. Our angel of dawn is setting a small little spring bouquet next to the wren home, inviting guests, knowing the next act in the play called spring will soon bring our little birds to add their voices. Faithful gifts from the heavens.
Spring. Easter. Crisp air. Pictures in our heads of what the little green shoots will become. Shorts. White skin. Longer legs on our children than when they covered their legs last fall. Brighter sunrises. First calves. Spring. Easter. Hymns. But there is always a flip side of each coin. With the brightness I have seen in the eyes of several friends and those in the store sad eyes. For some the winter brought grief. For these the spring brings sadness at the reality of what is lost.
How can we tie the two together? Excitement. Sadness. With three words. He is risen. Hope. Belief in the eternal perspective. When we are in heaven we will no longer need the two words faith and hope, for in heaven both words are unneeded ideas. Hope – all will be fulfilled. Faith. We will not have to have faith, for the reality will be in front of us. Eternity. Beauty. Easter.
Below are quotes that I loved on Spring and on Easter. For you to think on today….this weekend…this season.
The day the Lord created hope was probably the same day he created Spring. Bern Williams
The splendor of the rose and the whiteness of the lily do not rob the little violet of it’s scent nor the daisy of its simple charm. If every tiny flower wanted to be a rose, spring would lose its loveliness. Therese of Lisieux
Let the resurrection joy lift us from loneliness and weakness and despair to strength and beauty and happiness. Floyd W. Tomkins
Springtime is the land awakening. The March winds are the morning yawn. Lewis Grizzard in I Love You by Kathy Loudermilk
And he departed from our sight that we might return to our heart, and there find Him. For He departed, and behold, He is here. St Augustine
Spring makes it’s own statement, so loud and clear that the gardener seems to be only one of the instruments, not the composer. Geoffrey Charlesworth
It is one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade. Charles Dickens
The joyful news that He is risen does not change the contemporary world. Still before us lie work, discipline, sacrifice. But the fact of Easter gives us the spiritual power to do the work, accept the discipline, and make the sacrifice. Henry Knox Sherrill
Our Lord has written the promise of the resurrection, not in books alone, but in every leaf in spring-time. Martin Luther
Easter is not a time for groping through dusty, musty tomes or tombs to disprove spontaneous generation or even to prove life eternal. It is a day to fan the ashes of dead hope, a day to banish doubts and seek the slopes where the sun is rising, to revel in the faith which transports us out of ourselves and the dead past into the vast and inviting unknown. Author unknown, as quoted in the Lewiston Tribune
With the coming of spring, I am calm again. Gustav Mahler
Easter spells out beauty, the rare beauty of new life. S.D. Gordon
The resurrection gives my life meaning and direction and the opportunity to start over no matter what my circumstances. Robert Flatt
The cool wind blew in my face and all at once I felt as if I had shed dullness from myself. Before me lay a long gray line with a black mark down the center. The birds were singing. It was spring. Burl Ives
It’s spring fever. That is what the name of it is. And when you’ve got it, you want – oh, you don’t quite know what it is you do want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so! Mark Twain
If I had my life to live over, I would start barefoot earlier in the spring and stay that way later in the fall. Nadine Stair
The sun was warm but the wind was chill. You know how it is with an April day When the sun is out and the wind is still, You’re one month on in the middle of May. But if you so much as dare to speak, A cloud comes over the sunlit arch, A wind comes off a frozen peak, And you’re two months back in the middle of March. Robert Frost
He is risen; he is not here. Mark 16:6
The little windflower, whose just opened eye is blue as the spring heaven it gazes at. William Bryant
I love spring anywhere, but if I could choose I would always greet it in a garden. Ruth Stout
No matter how long the winter, spring is sure to follow. Proverb
Science has never drummed up quite as effective a tranquilizing agent as a sunny spring day. W. Earl Hall
If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant; if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome. Anne Bradstreet
The year’s at the spring
And day’s at the morn;
Morning’s at seven;
The hillside’s dew-pearled;
The lark’s on the wing;
The snail’s on the thorn;
God’s in His heaven –
All’s right with the world! Robert Browning
Expect to have hope rekindled. Expect your prayers to be answered in wondrous ways. The dry seasons in life do not last. The spring rains will come again. Sarah Ban Breathnach
Do not abandon yourselves to despair. We are the Easter people and hallelujah is our song. Pope John Paul II
In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt. Margaret Atwood
First a howling blizzard woke us,
Then the rain came down to soak us,
And now before the eye can focus –
Crocus. Lilja Rogers
The beautiful spring came; and when Nature resumes her loveliness, the human soul is apt to revive also. Harriet Ann Jacobs
I drank the silence of God from a spring in the woods. Georg Trakl
Oh, Spring! I want to go out and feel you and get inspiration. My old things seem dead. I want fresh contacts, more vital searching. Emily Carr
Never cut a tree down in the wintertime. Never make a negative decision in the low time. Never make your most important decisions when you are in your worst moods. Wait. Be patient. The storm will pass. The spring will come. Robert Schuller
One swallow does not make a summer, but one skein of geese, cleaving the murk of March thaw, is the Spring. Aldo Leopold
Earth teach me to forget myself as melted snow forgets its life. Earth teach me resignation as the leaves which die in the fall. Earth teach me courage as the tree which stands all alone. Earth teach me regeneration as the seed which rises in the spring. William Alexander
Every spring is the only spring – a perpetual astonishment. Ellis Peters
Spring won’t let me stay in this house any longer! I must get out and breathe the air deeply again. Gustav Mahler
In the spring I have counted one hundred and thirty-six different kinds of weather inside of four and twenty hours. Mark Twain
Spring has returned. The Earth is like a child that knows poems. Rainer Maria Rilke
The sun was warm but the wind was chill. You know how it is with an April day. Robert Frost
If you’ve never been thrilled to the very edges of your soul by a flower in spring bloom, maybe your soul has never been in bloom. Terri Guillemets
April hath put a spirit of youth in everything. William Shakespeare
People ask me what I do in winter when there’s no baseball. I’ll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring. Rogers Hornsby
The seasons are what a symphony ought to be: four perfect movements in harmony with each other. Arthur Rubenstein
Christ the Lord is risen today, Sons of men and angels say. Raise your joys and triumphs high; Sing, ye heavens, and earth reply! Charles Wesley No winter lasts forever; no spring skips its turn. Hal Borland
In my head is the little poem…Each little flower that opens..each little bird that sings…He made their tiny colors, He made their tiny wings. All things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small. All things wise and wonderful the Lord God made them all! I hope we can all have an Easter weekend to think, pray, and turn our eyes to our creator who gave us our life. Our gardener. The one who cares for us as no other could come close to caring for us. Thank you for letting me come into your day again. I hope you notice the little bud that God created especially for your pleasure this week. Susan
Latin for this week: Happy Easter! - Prospera Pascha sit