Think Out Loud - Renewal

As spring bursts out around me and the Boston Marathon celebrates and the economy slowly continues to recover, the idea of renewal comes to be repeatedly.

All around the scenes of spring are playing out - the dogwoods and cherry are heavy with flower, the forsythia are yellow, the big deciduous trees and the smaller deciduous bushes have the tiny leaf buds. Brightly colored birds are chittering everywhere but there are still only few insects and the temperatures are still cool.

The Boston Marathon has been in the news every day. How the people who had been there a year ago had managed to move forward, essentially restarting lives paused by the heinous act of a year ago.

Then I got to thinking about the term rebirth, also often used with spring. Seems to me that rebirth is not quite right, because that implies starting with a clean slate, without any of the baggage/burdens from the past. This is certainly not true - we remember the bombing; the plants and birds carry with them the results of last year. But it is a renewal, a restart, an opportunity for positive building on whatever had gone before. A time of optimism.

So here's to spring, may it come every year.

Do you have a favorite book about renewal (springtime or any other kind)? Drop a comment and share it with all of us.

Today's poem (a different kind of renewal):

The Morning

The morning whispers its greeting like a lover

Enticing with its beauty and its confidence.

The morning murmurs its promise like a child

Full of innocence and hope and intentions.

The morning arrives with an intensity belied

By its outward calm and quiet demeanor.

The morning leaves with imperceptible surety

Waving gently with a guarantee to return.