Thawing the Freeze

by Donna Poole

I’m wondering what spring looks like on your country road, small town lane, or city street. Here in Michigan springtime is an elusive dance that’s hard to learn, kind of a combination of a cha-cha and ballet: two steps forward, one back, one step forward, two back, and a graceful leap sideways. The most dramatic part of the dance occurs between April 15 and May 15. We don’t plant flowers or tomatoes just yet. We know another freeze is likely, but gradually, wonder of wonders, it happens. Springtime thaws the freeze and shows us her lovely, smiling face.

Spring calls to the child in us to look, listen, touch, smell, and most of all, to wonder. We shouldn’t lose our sense of wonder in the winter; the individual geometric beauty of each snowflake is breathtaking. But there’s something about all those flakes heaped together and blown by a brutal north wind that can freeze the wonder right out of us. Wool scarves up around our noses and heads down into the wind we plow our way grimly from house to car, from car to store or church, and ask each other if it will ever end. We work hard not to let every winter become the winter of our discontent.

In life, does it matter if we lose the sense of wonder, if wintery circumstances steal it and replace it with indifference or cynicism? It may matter more than we know. We can’t see nature, life, each other, or even God correctly unless we look with childlike eyes of wonder.

“The surest way to suppress our ability to understand the meaning of God and the importance of worship is to take things for granted. Indifference to the sublime wonder of living is the root of sin.”—Abraham Joshua Herschel (And thank you for that quote, Dr. Paul Patton.)

I’m afraid we sometimes let the winter of life freeze the wonder out of us.

So many things can ice-over our hearts: loss, betrayal, neglect, indifference, man’s inhumanity to man, aging, sickness, death—even our own discontentment.

Though spring is slowly creeping its way back to Michigan, there’s a chilly attitude of discontent here during this covid 19 quarantine time. Some think our governor should have opened the state back up yesterday; others say today is too soon, and the animosity and name-calling between the two groups is sad.

I’ve been inwardly grumbling too. If we have to shelter at home, we could at least have nice weather.

We had a lovely spring here in Michigan, for two whole days. I enjoyed walking around our almost two acres, ignoring the needed clean-up, and admiring everything through the eyes of the child in me; the budding lilacs and red bushes, the sprouting plants: lilies of the valley, hostas, rhubarb, tulips, and bleeding hearts. I exclaimed over everything that blossomed, first the snowdrops, followed in turn by crocuses, hyacinths, and daffodils. I admired the greening grass and buds on the trees and joined the birds in their songs of praise to our creator.

Then a wind and hailstorm all but destroyed the sprouting tulips. Rabbits, pigs that they are, stopped eating my chives and ate every last crocus for dessert. Next, it snowed, not just a little, but a half foot. Cold rainy day followed cold rainy day. Yesterday our governor announced we had to shelter at home for two more weeks.

I get it; I want to be safe, and I certainly don’t want any more people to get sick or die, but how much longer until I can see family and friends and go back to church? I miss my grandkids! I hear a crackle; it’s my heart beginning to freeze around the edges. I stop myself, or rather, God stops me. Discontentment, that instant icemaker, slips in so easily.

Aren’t those such little, selfish things to coat my heart with ice until it looks like a mud puddles frozen over in the spring? Sure, I have some problems I’m not mentioning here, but others face catastrophic crises.

Doctors and nurses, at my beloved University of Michigan hospital and around the world are exhausted, giving everything, somehow finding more to give, and then getting sick from the patients they help.

“They warned us at medical school some of us would die from diseases our patients gave us,” one of my doctors told me.

So much deep suffering. Some people are losing their businesses; others can’t get unemployment because the system is overwhelmed. Men, women, children, even babies are dying alone, and their loved ones are crying and separated from them.

People we love are hurting, and we can’t go and comfort them. When I despair over this, I forget that where my hands can’t reach God’s can; where my love can’t help His can, and where I can’t go, He is already there.

Complaining only makes things worse. It robs us of wonder, distorts trouble into monstrous proportions, and prevents us from seeing the little lights of joy we so desperately need in dark times.

Joy and wonder return when I stop complaining and thank God and others for the smallest blessings. My cold, winter heart thaws, and I can find spring in any season because I’m looking with childlike eyes of wonder.

I saw springtime on the news. A man recovered from covid 19 and left the hospital cheered on by doctors and nurses lining the halls. He arrived home, and his neighbors held a drive by parade for him, honking horns, waving, and smiling. He watched, surrounded by his family, his face wet with tears. Spring had come to his house.

Springtime is an elusive dance and hard to learn, but I’m practicing the steps. With every thank you I’m thawing the freeze.

So, now it’s finally spring, and, “Today, well past afternoon the sun still breaks through forgotten winter windows and from without the new birds sing the old songs and suddenly I see the new budding season and smell the fresh cut dreams and promises of tomorrow.” –Roger Granet