Though summer is truly my favorite season hands-down no doubts, I’ve always loved spring, even with its inconsistency and variability. The first few days of decent weather – like the last couple days here – always feel like an exhale after the stillness and quiet of winter. This is our first spring here at our current house, and the change in environment has made that transition from winter to spring even more noticeable. One of the intriguing things I’ve noticed is the variation in leaf buds as they appear on the trees. We’re surrounded by a number of different species of trees and shrubs, more than at any other point in the last 10+ years, and these variations are most noticeable in the maple trees right outside our front door. One is a red maple, and the other is…….not a red maple. (I think it’s a Norway maple, but I can’t recall. What I know for sure is that it is very much a maple tree but not a red maple.) The red maple has leaf buds with deep maroon covers that look almost like tiny flowers. The other one has leaf buds that currently look like fluorescent green pom-poms, almost like an illustration from a Dr. Seuss book. It looks a little comical all on its own, but especially in comparison with the red maple. It highlights for me the creativity of the Lord, who not only created both of these trees, but also saw fit to make them closely related from a botanical perspective and yet so very different in appearance. Truly nature points us to the Creator, if we’re willing to look.
Musings on theology, Scripture, and life
