New Year's Eve

Saturday, December 31, 2011

 

Spring in December 

Quince bushes have tentative red blooms on bare twigs, daffodils show buds reaching out of the warming earth, and periwinkle is putting out new greenery and topping  it with blue flowers. What’s going on? Days of soaking rain followed by 60 degree days have Mother Nature confused. The week after Christmas feels like spring  despite forecasts of freezing nights next week.

 

It has been said the Winter in Alabama lasts 3 weeks, Spring and Fall last 2 months, and summer is forever. It was a great day to work outside in the flower beds and plant sprigs to grow into English dogwood or redbuds. The sun made it warmer in the yard than the house and the dogs stretched and dozed in the warm sun.

 

The last Christmas decorations are down and packed for next year. The clichés about time speeding up as we age are reinforced by seasonal obligations and we go through the motions yearly. Many hours of addressing Christmas cards with personalized  messages are wasted as deadlines pass and we revert to e-greetings leaving cards in their original boxes. Some of us just ain’t organized enough to get them out in time.

At twilight my nephew hosted a cookout, bonfire, and later fireworks. Leaning back in the chair by the fire I looked at red sparks flying upward against the darkness. A bright sliver of moon and sprinkling of stars make me remember the time before farm nights were cluttered by a hundred kinds of man-made light.

 

New Year’s Eve.  The old 2011 is passing away in two hours.  Some say dire happenings are in store in 2012. I don’t remember any one forecasting Japan’s double calamity or the Arab Spring. No one said a flurry of tonados would cause death, damage, and permanent destruction over the southern states. God still reigns and knows where we are. Faith allows us to sleep knowing He is in control.

Happy 365 days of New Year. May there be   comfort for sorrow, brotherhood instead of divisions, hope to replace fear, and joy  to combat despair.  May you be granted the PEACE that has nothing broken, nothing missing, and provision for our needs, physical, spiritual, and emotional. Remind us that as bad as things may be, Our country is the most blessed land for its people, and it is up to us to keep it that way.

God Bless us all.               Dorothy Gast