Favorites for everyone

 If you live in a four-season climate or even maybe just a two-season one, I'm sure you have your change-of-seasons favorite moments: the first hummingbird that comes, the first winter wonderland snowfall, the first pumpkins that are displayed in the same place every year, the first day it's warm enough to sunbathe.

Well, in Erie we have many firsts when winter changes to spring. It would be much too hard to list my ten top favorites--I don't think I could get them down to only ten! But among the top three would definitely be this one: the blossoms on the flowering pear tree in the center of our library courtyard--on which at least half of our bedrooms have a view. But the view I catch it with is the one from the library itself. I'm walking down a hallway, just as I was this week, and suddenly out of the corner of my eye, this huge white expanse goes by--and I know instantly what it is: the whole pear tree has erupted and fills the panes of glass that cover the east wall of our library.

Every year I try to take a more perfect picture of what my eye sees. But I must tell you, they never catch exactly what we see. Nevertheless, here's this year's attempt.

For those of you with whom we are sharing the coming of spring, I hope you are getting wonderful pink and yellow and white surprises everywhere you look. One more of my favorites: the route I take into my ministry each day, through some pretty dilapidated neighborhoods and the unexpected gloriously blooming dogwoods or magnolia trees, in the yards and up against the most humble of abodes. Good thing nature doesn't care where it comes through.