Perspective

"We felt very nice and snug, the more so since it was so chilly out of doors; indeed out of bed-clothes too, seeing that there was no fire in the room. The more so, I say, because truly to enjoy bodily warmth, some small part of you must be cold, for there is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast. Nothing exists in itself. If you flatter yourself that you are all over comfortable, and have been so a long time, then you cannot be said to be comfortable any more. But if, like Queequeg and me in the bed, the tip of your nose or the crown of your head be slightly chilled, why then, indeed, in the general consciousness you feel most delightfully and unmistakably warm."
-from Herman Melville's Moby Dick

I love this passage. Okay, I'll own up to it: it's one of two passages of Moby Dick I've ever actually read (maybe someday). Perhaps it's because I grew up accustomed to cold weather and the delight of being warm under the covers when you know how cold it is just outside of them. Or maybe it's just because it's such a perfect description of the value of perspective.

I've been delighting this year in watching the spring (slowly, slowly) unfold from its dormancy. Discovering sprouts of daffodils and mysterious other early flowers around my yard, leaving the curtains open all day and coming home to a wonderful, sun-warmed cabin, keeping a close eye on the leaf-buds all around that seem to grow even as I watch them. I have always loved spring, but my appreciation for it has blossomed exponentially after four years in California. When it's almost always sunny, when the trees stay green all year or drop their brown (not red and gold) leaves in the unheard-of month of February, there's no value to spring.

But when spring follows months of wearing four layers of clothing inside, chopping your weight in wood daily, walking to work and then waiting an hour to regain feeling in your toes, oh, welcome, glorious Spring!

It's about perspective. It's about contrast. There is so much in this life, in this world, that will pull us down and break us, freezing our hearts until we can't bear to feel anything anymore. This was not God's intent at the beginning of all things. But praise the One who redeems even the deadest of circumstances, who uses our greatest trials for our greatest deliverance! Without winter, could spring be so glorious?