sweet lessons

What a glorious day it has been!

75 degrees and sunshine on this very first day of Spring.  Seasonally unusual, they say.  I'm 38 years old and I cannot recall a start to Spring that has been as graceful, as colorful, as welcoming!

So I played hooky.  Ahem.  Not exactly, but I did volunteer to chaperone eight second graders on their maple sugaring field trip.  This is a first for us and having read Amanda,who writes so beautifully about the community inherent in the traditions of maple sugaring, we were quite excited.

I was so impressed and a little intimidated by what these second graders knew.  As we traveled station to station through the sugaring trail, they answered questions about American history, identified trees, predicted new inventions and materials used to make sugaring more efficient.  Smart little people, they are.

I quickly realized that they weren't the only smart creatures that required a bit of attention and reflection.  It occurred to me that every bit of nature is as smart as these little people and far more wise than humanity.

The flowers. They know when it's time to wake their nesting bulbs and peer through the earth.

The birds. They know when it's warm enough to fly north.

The trees. They know how to store food during winter and exactly when and where to deliver that food store as the days grow longer and warmer.

Totally in synch with the earth and the seasons.  It's probably six weeks early this year.  But, each and every creature knows that it is time.

I stood awe-struck at the wisdom of nature.  What lessons we can learn!

I've been thinking, for quite a while now, about the idea of being called.  As I walked through the woods today I wondered what inside each tree prompts it to awaken.  Does it have a calling, a sense of something larger than itself compelling it to do what it does?  

I wondered if being called and honoring that calling could really be so simple.

The notion of being called brings my mind immediately to religious icons such as Mother Teresa.  In her stories and others, I always imagine a calling to be quite clear.  Somewhat of a "slap me over the head with it" kind of knowing.  

I also imagine that being called amounts to something big - something really big - for example, the legacies of Ghandi or Martin Luther King.  I wonder if being called was as clear and convincing and compelling as it seems only knowing their stories.

It, too, seems to me that nature knows its place and purpose.  It seems to me that nature keeps itself open to possibility.  It seems to me that nature remains connected in ways that make fulfilling its purpose possible.  It seems to me that nature does not get in its own way.  

It simply becomes what it is supposed to be. Perhaps that is the sweetest lesson of all!