Today is Friday, March 20. Spring officially arrived just after 6 a.m. today. These past three months — and more — have been the coldest in many years, with more snow and more ice than I ever hope to see again.

Neighbors have been holed up in their homes, afraid of falling on the slippery walks or parking lots. The wind has blown, dropping dust from the fields onto the piled snow in our yards and along the highways, turning everything a muddy brown. The people have been depressed.

Ah, but now… “now the winter is past.”

People are smiling! In the byways and coffee shops, folks are reciting the names of the birds that have reappeared after their winter absence: robins, gulls, finches, and red-winged blackbirds (my apologies to Al Batt for perhaps stealing some of his thunder). Even Chippy Jr., the cutest little chipmunk you ever did see, who happens to live near my front door, has emerged from his semi-hibernation. I am one of those people who are smiling!

And people are saying, “I thought spring was never going to get here.” Hmm. I know it may seem like that is true sometimes, but there are several ways to look at this phenomenon. First of all, most of us live here in Minnesota (and northern Iowa) because we love to observe the changing of the seasons. There is a certain calmness that comes from knowing that the hours and minutes and days march along in order, and turn into weeks and months and seasons. This predictability gives us a sense of both order and of progress. We cannot control the passage of time, but we can note it and respond to its changing as if we were succeeding at some cosmic task when we mark off a day or tear last month’s page off the calendar.

And why are we so afraid that winter will never end? Part of it may have to do with heating bills, I’m sure. But part of it is our love of nature — the kind we can see and experience without being bundled up with heat-preserving layers from head to to. When the birds begin building their nests, when the waters begin gurgling over the rocks in the creek beds, when the first green shoots of the daffodils poke through the soil, then we know that all is still right with the world. There is new life. No, not new life — renewed life. It is a promise that what has been has, indeed, been “good.” and so it is worth having again.

In the book of Genesis, we read of many times our ancestors of faith were less than faithful. God gave up almost entirely, but saved from the flood a small family and the animals of the land and sky. After the flood, Noah (who also must have felt that this 40-day “winter of discontent” would never end), sacrificed burnt offerings to God. The aroma was pleasing to God, and so the Lord said, “I will never again curse the ground because of humankind, for the inclination of the human heart is evil from youth; nor will I ever again destroy every living creature as I have done. As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.” (Genesis 8:21-22)

We should not doubt, then, that spring will return, because God has promised it always will!

So, it is time to enjoy. Breathe deeply. Put away the thermal underwear and dig out the gardening gloves.

“My beloved speaks and says to me: ‘Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away; for now the winter is past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth; the time of singing has come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land. The fig tree puts forth its figs, and the vines are in blossom; they give forth fragrance. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.’” (Song of Solomon 2:10-13)