This sight greeted me today, during a quick post-prandial walk round the block. I might not have seen it: I only decided, as I left the house, to go this way and not that; then, to walk on that side of the road; not to turn left; to look up and ahead when I did. I could so easily have missed seeing it - but didn't.
I do not know exactly what this tree is, but I'm assuming some kind of winter flowering cherry, beguiled into bloom by our currently mild weather. So I don't know what it is, or whether it has any business flowering in mid-November, but I do know how I felt as I paused, awed as if before a burning bush. Even surrounded by autumn's incomparable palette of russet and gold, this subtly blushing blossom caught my eye and my heart, with its unexpected reminder of spring's inevitable return.
There's been a lot of darkness recently: the seasonal darkness of shortening, often dull and grey winter days... and the collective pessimistic darkness of increasing infections and deaths, increasing job loss and insecurity, and yet another lockdown, with everything this means for now and the future. There was the deadening, tightening knot of anxiety as we lived through the US elections, and the burst of hope and promise as the outcome became apparent... followed a few days later, for Catholics at least, by the grimness of the IICSA report.
But, of course, the darkness has not been the whole story of these past few weeks. There's been solidarity and goodness, laughter, friendship and light - yes; light. There is always light, however faintly it might glimmer, because there is always God - here, with and among us. And today, an improbably flowering tree, which I might so easily have missed; just one of so many other small beauties, waiting to be met, and to remind me of this unquenchable light...
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