Spring Renewal

Spring brings feelings of renewal

I’m remembering the song from the musical, “Oklahoma!” — “Spring is busting out all over” — with the rows and rows of beautiful pink phlox in the medians and sometimes both sides of the highway, azaleas in profusion all around town, sometimes completely covering the neatly trimmed stands in front of homes. I smell my yellow rosebush, which is on my way to the yellow mailbox, where I find my morning newspaper on the way to my morning mile walk. As I checked for fallen grapefruit on my backyard tree, the fragrance of the blossoms on the tree was heavenly. So, into a large vase I clipped a couple of small branches and placed it on my dining room table. Now my home is filled with that scent, as though I was in a lovely, blossom-filled spring garden. Yes, it’s a time of “renewal,” which is our positive word for this month. So let’s see what has been said about it and try to apply it to our journey along the caregiving path. Are you ready? Here we go:

 

Izaak Walton: “Look to your health; and if you have it, give thanks and value it next to your conscience for health is the second blessings we mortals have, a blessing money can’t buy.”

Alfred Lord Tennyson: “Self-reverence, self-control, self-knowledge, these three alone lead life to sovereign power.”

George Eliot: “It is never too late to be what you might have been.”

Leo Tolstoy: “True life is lived when small changes occur.”

Pearl S. Buck: “Inside myself is a place where I live all alone and that’s where you renew your springs that never dry up.”

When we take time for the renewal of our mind and body, observing our springs, nature’s bountiful, the lovely array of floral colors, we are renewed.

We have abundant renewing energy within and outside of us, even if we don’t always feel it. As we share words and acts of kindness and love, giving back in appreciation at each day’s gift of life, we are renewed.

Just as spring buds have blossomed and filled the landscape, our mind and body has been prepared for renewal, new strength, new purpose and positive adventures along the volunteer path we have chosen to travel. In order for us to feel vibrant and ready to create positive changes in our life and in the community around us, we need to take the time for renewal by getting enough sleep, eating well, having fun, and spending time in silence.