The Growing Edge

I enjoyed two accidental discoveries this week. The first was Tiger Lilies coming up outside my bedroom window. My landlady had mentioned them to me when I moved in, but of course it was fall and they were pretty sorry looking. I didn't remember then how powerfully the signs of life impact a person after the winter is done. Walking in from the garage and spotting these on one of the first warm days this spring made my heart sing.

The second delightful discovery was a quote from a 20th century theologian whose wisdom I had not visited in a long time. Hello, Howard Thurman. You are brilliant as always!

"Look well to the growing edge. All around us worlds are dying and new worlds are being born; all around us life is dying and life is being born. The fruit ripens on the tree, the roots are silently at work in the darkness of the earth against a time when there shall be new lives, fresh blossoms, green fruit. Such is the growing edge! It is the extra breath from the exhausted lung, the one more thing to try when all else has failed, the upward reach of life when weariness closes in upon all endeavor. This is the basis of hope in moments of despair, the incentive to carry on when times are out of joint and men have lost their reason, the source of confidence when worlds crash and dreams whiten into ash. The birth of a child — life's most dramatic answer to death — this is the growing edge incarnate. Look well to the growing edge!" —Howard Thurman

Some days I feel as though I have been at the growing edge for the past 16 months. Hope and expectation have sustained me; the certainty that life is a circle, not a straight line, has kept me moving forward into the unknown. And now, as spring approaches and new life pushes up from the recently frozen dirt, I know that I was RIGHT, not just a cock-eyed optimist.  Thanks be to God!