"Lo, the earth awakes again" begins the Unitarian Universalist version of the traditional Christian Easter hymn. It is a hymn that even a UU congregation can sing lustily, and it is one of my favorites. When Diane and I lived in Vermont "lo the earth awakes again" had special meaning as by Easter, crocuses were poking up their purple and yellow heads (sometimes through the snow, left), and if we were lucky, daffodils were just beginning to flower.
Diane and I have been in Sarasota for 23 years now, and we still miss the Vermont spring flowers and flowering shrubs, but we do have our Florida version of spring to help compensate. Our Sarasota landscape is dotted with gold trees, pink orchid trees and oak trees sporting their bright spring green coats. Spring comes to the UUCS campus as well. The aforementioned oak trees turn bright green, the flame vine at the northern Memorial Garden gate welcomes one to the garden with its bright orange flowers, red Easter Lilies line one of the garden pathways, right. We even have an “Easter cactus” in bloom - it didn’t bloom at Christmas but is now. And of course, our UUCS Memorial Garden spring colors benefit from the numerous orchids, below, that dot all corners, hanging from the fence around the pond and from locations on various trees.
The last two lines in the aforementioned UU hymn captures my feelings about a Florida spring:
"How our spirits soar
and sing,
How our hearts leap
with the spring! "
And maybe, just maybe, by next Easter, UUCS will be “in person”, and we can gather together and sing as one voice “Lo, the earth awakes again.” Wouldn’t that be nice!
"How our spirits soar
and sing,
How our hearts leap
with the spring! "
And maybe, just maybe, by next Easter, UUCS will be “in person”, and we can gather together and sing as one voice “Lo, the earth awakes again.” Wouldn’t that be nice!
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