April Showers and May Flowers

I have no way to talk about springtime without bombarding you with a million different cliches. Even to simply say "I love spring" seems overused and hollow. But I'm kind of okay with that. In fact, I embrace it. Because the truth is that I DO love spring, and in this season I myself transform into a living, breathing cliche; all I want to do is skip through fields of wildflowers in a flowy white skirt and barefeet (not something you'd want to, or could do, where I live in Korea, by the way).

There seems to be something intrinsic to this season that brings out wild and beautiful desires in my spirit. It awakens my heart to a deep and joy-filled thirst-- thirst for change, for freshness, for freedom and life. It is a thirst that too often lays dormant in the pursuit of comfort and warmth accompanying those long (and, this year, longer than usual) winter months, but that every year, by God's grace given in the changing seasons, refreshes me and brings a new light to my vision of the world around me. Springtime brings with it a reminder of who I am, and points me to the hope, beauty and transforming power of my God.

From the day of my arrival in this country, I have been looking forward to experiencing this season here. Springtime is a source of great national pride for Koreans-- even as early as last summer, when asked how I liked Korea, I was frequently met with, "Oh, well, if you like it now, just wait until SPRING." And I have not been disappointed-- it truly is beautiful. Spring in Korea is marked by blossoming cherry trees at every turn and various flower festivals held in nearly every city. The most popular festivals showcase apricot blossoms, the Japanese dogwood, and, of course, cherry blossoms. Korea can't seem to get enough of them, and neither can I!



Here in Ansan we had our own TULIP festival. Tulips are one of my favorite flowers-- probably second only to pink and red daisies-- and this festival did not disappoint. A beautiful and seemingly endless array of the brightly colored flowers were planted alongside the man-made river that runs through our city, drawing out hundreds of couples and families with strollers and pets in tow to enjoy this season's first real weekend of warmth and sun.

(photos courtesy of the lovely and amazing Anlee :) )

The festival was certainly a nice reprieve from all of the concrete, and, though it was not a field of wildflowers for me to prance through, it still hit me like a breath of fresh air. Because while there is a part of my heart that can only be touched by things that grow wild and unruly, I have also come to realize that there is a unique and particular kind of beauty to be found in a garden of flowers that have been cultivated and toiled over.

I credit C.S. Lewis' Four Loves for waking me up to this beauty. In that book, Lewis uncovers in a well-tended garden a metaphor for love. Embedded in the essential qualities of the garden there is on the one hand a sense of the absolute necessity of the gardener's hard work and care, at the same time that there is also an overwhelming sense that this work pales beside the beauty of the cultivated thing itself-- the thing whose source of energy, life and glory are born out of nature rather than human hands. In the same way, our diligent and often cumbersome toil is necessary in order to maintain and show love, but, ultimately, the source and glory in any display of love, as in a garden, is not our own, but our Father and Creator's.

This analogy resonates powerfully with me. It also gives voice to the reason that I chose the title and header image of this blog to accompany one another. I am thankful for Lewis' ability to articulate and shed light on something that I feel but could not have adequately expressed, and so leave you with his words rather than my own:

"It is no disparagement to a garden to say that it will not fence and weed itself, nor prune its own fruit trees, nor roll and cut its own lawns. A garden is a good thing but [keeping itself] is not the sort of goodness it has. It will remain a garden, as distinct from a wilderness, only if someone does all these things to it. Its real glory is of quite a different kind. The very fact that it needs constant weeding and pruning bears witness to that glory. It teems with life. It glows with colour and smells like heaven and puts forward at every hour of a summer day beauties with man could never have created and could not even, on his own resources, have imagined... And when the garden is in its full glory the gardener's contributions to that glory have still been in a sense paltry compared with those of nature. Without life springing from the earth, without rain, light and heat descending from the sky, he could do nothing. When he has done all, he has merely encouraged here and discouraged there, powers and beauties that have a different source. "

May you all find joy and life in springtime, wherever you are :)