March 11, 2026

“The earth laughs in flowers.”
 ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

~Earth

Dear Ones,

Maybe it’s just me, but it seems that spring has just pounced on us all at once this year. And I’m finding that welcome, given the winter we’ve just had. 

What I’ve spotted over just the last few days: redbud (a personal favorite), Bradford pear blossoms (an embarrassing but pretty holdover from the less horticulturally enlightened Nashville of the 1980s), daffodils, peach blossoms (indications are that the squirrels in my backyard will be well-fed this summer!), forsythia, all the so-called weeds that start growing before the grass gets around to greening up, Lenten roses, garlic sprouts (Egyptian walking garlic in my front yard!), leaves returning to all sorts of roadside underbrush (well, probably mostly shrub honeysuckle), and most recently & most welcomed after the hard winter our trees have had: new leaves beginning to grow on our big trees. I am so very eager this spring to see our tree canopy leaf out and turn green after the damage suffered over the winter.

More than usually and for many reasons I–and perhaps you, too–need a lush Middle Tennessee spring this year. I hope you will spend some time attending to the joy and encouragement this season brings.

Yours in soaking up the return of greenness and blooming,

Rev. Denise
RevDenise@gnuuc.org