Column: Spring invites new life as the earth comes alive under my feet

Beloved: My neighbors’ yards suddenly need mowing.*

Their grass is spinach green and thick. Birdy can’t stop shoving her snout down in it to then she come up sneezing. At her favorite patch she flops down for a full-on back rub against the ground while I stand waiting, trying not to look as ridiculous as I feel.

Embarrassed or exposed as I may be, the fact remains: it’s spring, and Birdy knows it. The trees and flowers know it. The very ground we stand on knows it and is splitting with that knowledge held within itself.

Even as I stand to the side, waiting for Birdy to finish exuberating, I too am invited. Invited to join this hemisphere in the great starting over which is spring. To open and stretch this body which has been folded cozy against the winter. To pick up and pile the broken sticks and limbs, finally fallen so new growth has ample room to thrive. To bend very close to the earth and brush away the detritus, making space for tiny shoots to find the sun and breathe.

This patch of life I now tend is new to me, a place for starting over. In my second spring here it’s begun to feel like mine, not mine to possess, but mine to watch and fuss over. I am grateful for the invitation to stay present and stay busy in such a cosmic enterprise as spring.

As much as some things change, it’s deeply comforting to me that other things never do — daffodils and goofy dogs being two that come to mind. I pray this gorgeous day is kind to you in every way.

Peace and prayers, Pastor Annette.

*My tiny front yard – think two parking spaces – is completely shaded by an oak tree, where good grass can never grow. The area is currently carpeted in acorns.

Annette Hill Briggs is pastor at University Baptist Church in Bloomington.

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Columnist welcomes spring to the land she occupies for a second season