A Red State Mystic.

(Note: give it a minute or so and it turns into a beautiful melody. Enjoy.)

I HAVE SPENT most of the afternoon outside today. For but a brief moment in East Tennessee, we have a taste of spring in what has been a bitterly cold (and icy) winter. Perhaps Eliot was right that “April is the cruelest month.” Cruel, perhaps, for the weather plays with our hopes and aspirations: one day, a frigid single-digit temperature, the next a sunny, sixty degrees. But it is not April, but January. I expect a few more weeks of the cold.

BUT I DON’T mind a beautiful day every once in awhile in the midst of it all. I do not find it cruel; I find that it makes me be thankful. I am thankful for a warmish day, for the sun, for the simple pleasure of a rocking chair, for quick jokes and the company of a new friend. The forecast says it is supposed to snow by Monday. No, I do not think that it is cruel. I think its just right. As St. Teresa of Avila once wrote, “All weather is good weather because it’s God’s weather.” I have been given all I need for this moment, this one moment (of moments) in my life: and I include the weather in that equation, too. So, I say it again, I am thankful.

FOR TODAY, I am optimistic and hopeful. My skin breathes and relaxes the held tension of so many cold, frigid days. The light breeze blew through my body for those few hours outside and the sun pierced straight through my flesh into my soul. There was laughter, the relaxed joy of just being as a part of God’s creation. There is Copland, providing the soundtrack. There was the contentment of a mild day, a deep contentment of the soul as the sun falls behind the mountains and the shadows lengthen.

OF COURSE, THERE are other reasons for optimism. There is a new administration that seems committed to do a better job on issues of life (but not abortion, unfortunately) than the previous administration. Say what you want about President Obama: decry him as the Antichrist of the New World Order, his very presence ushering such eschatological events as not to be reversed. Say what you want about President Obama: praise him as the new messiah, come to save us from the tyranny-of-tyrannies, his very presence ushering such a millennial reign as not to be reversed. You can say what you want, but pardon me while I shy away from such conversations. I’m just glad that there is hope once again in the land; that torture is officially ending and Guantanamo Bay is closing. I see it as a step in the right direction on this unseasonably mild and hopeful day in a long winter of desolation.

BUT THE ADMINISTRATION, great though it is, does not change hearts. Only the Gospel can do that. Only the Sacraments can do that. Only the speaking of one heart to another in the privacy of the Confessional can do this. Only the kick of that Divine Presence within can do this. Only friendships, deepened by trials and bound in love can do this. Only love can do this, this changing of hearts. For love speaks in the whispering of the trees -- the tall trees bound still to their leaves -- a decaying, reddening sign of hope, during these lengthening days of unequal proportions. But the light wins out, little by little, second by second. Announced by tempestuous pain, spring will be here in but a moment, in but the twinkling of an eye.