2ndApril2011 April in Minnesota

Another April has begun.  When someone from someplace else where it's warmer in the winter asks me about living in Minnesota, I often comment that April is my least favorite month.  It just seems like it ought to be nicer, greener, warmer, floweryer.  Instead, it's cold, gray, and damp.  The first year I spent in Minnesota it snowed 8 inches on the 30th of April.  I've spent many April Saturdays watching youth soccer games in the cold, rain, & even snow.  Even today, with a beautiful, cloudless sky, there's still a blanket of snow covering most of my back yard.  


And yet, by April winter is, in fact, gone & it is Spring.  Spring is probably beautiful everywhere, but there's something emotionally electrifying about Spring in Minnesota.  It's a thrill to see the first robin (my wife & I have a sort of contest:  which one will be the first to see a robin.  I won this year.  When I called her to tell her that I'd seen a robin on the way to work, she replied that she'd already seen one two days earlier, but since she didn't say anything to me about it, I declared that it didn't count).  And after I see the first robin, they're suddenly all over place.  Then the crocuses start to come up.  Then the tulips.  Then the daffodils.  The willows start to look a little greener.  Each new sign that the world is waking up is encouraging.  And if I'm paying attention, I've got something to be encouraged about every day.  


Moreover, by April we're playing baseball again (if the Twins had opened last night at Target Field they'd've been playing on a wet field in 40 degrees; instead they got creamed inside the dome in Toronto).  By April all the trout streams are open (& I hope to go fishing today).  In April, one starts to see one's neighbors again, and more & more people are out for walks and jogs and even bike rides. 


And so, today, even during my least favorite month, I'm very encouraged and grateful to God for the beauty and order of the world, for the change of the seasons, for the end of another winter, and for plenty to do today.