A poem and more for the New Year

"You think I am dead,"
The apple tree said,
"Because I have never a leaf to show-
Because I stoop,
And my branches droop,
And the dull gray mosses over me grow!
But I'm still alive in trunk and shoot;
The buds of next May
I fold away-
But I pity the withered grass at my root."

"You think I am dead,"
The quick grass said,
"Because I have parted with stem and blade!
But under the ground,
I am safe and sound
With the snow's thick blanket over me laid.

I'm all alive, and ready to shoot,
Should the spring of the year
Come dancing here-
But I pity the flower without branch or root."

"You think I am dead,"
A soft voice said,
"Because not a branch or root I own.
I never have died, but close I hide
In a plumy seed that the wind has sown.

Patient I wait through the long winter hours;
You will see me again-
I shall laugh at you then, 

Out of the eyes of a hundred flowers."

--Edith M. Williams

This poem appeared today at one of the gardening blogs I follow, greentapestry - a gardening and allotment notebook. It seems fitting for the New Year, a year for which I have decided my word will be "hope". 

St Paul writes about hope in his letter to the Romans (ch 5):

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand.

And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. 

Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.

And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.

And again, in chapter 15 he writes:

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Today would have been my mother's 88th birthday. She would not fault me for saying that hope was a virtue she was able to invoke more faithfully on behalf of others, than on behalf of herself. Maybe this is the way things go for us. I don't know.

The Dalai Lama speaks to the knife edge of hope and despair that sometimes cuts right through:

When we meet real tragedy in life, we can react in two ways--either by losing hope and falling into self-destructive habits, or by using the challenge to find our inner strength.

Colorado is brown right now. Shoots of green are months away. The challenge is to find shoots of green in my heart, to believe that an endless Spring can be present in one's spirit.

Happy New Year to you. May you, too, be able to cultivate the blessing of hope.