Mark Katrick faith column: Appreciate the dandelions, daisies this spring

It’s officially and irrevocably sprung! At least the calendar says so. So what did you do to welcome the new season and celebrate spring?

After the longest, hardest winter ever (the one with the blizzard of 1978), my girlfriend and I drove our vehicles to the home of my parents, hooked up hoses and washed off a season’s worth of road salt.

Sometimes, I’ve teed it up for my first round of the new year — even when it was cold enough to make the club tingle in your hands when you hit the ball. Dad, who was often my golf partner, got just as excited about getting the mowers tuned up.

One of my favorite things was to sit beside my mother at the kitchen table. With seed catalogues spread out all over, we began to plan for her flower and vegetable gardens. Since I was not nearly as enthusiastic about yard work as my father, this meant that there would be less grass to mow.

The appearance of one solitary dandelion is enough to get people going. And once you get started, you can’t stop until after the first freeze, next fall.

Though dandelions are considered to be common weeds, they add a golden touch to the "green, green grass" in our front and backyards. When prepared properly, Taraxacum officinale are filled with good and nutritious things. And my Grandpa Katrick made great wine out of them.

In the first few weeks of spring, I kept a lookout for the daisies. They too, are considered to be weeds by some. My mom didn’t think so. She cross bred them into all shapes, sizes and colors.

May I be so bold as to proclaim that one of the ways our Creator celebrates the coming of spring is by creating the dandelions, daisies, weeds, and such as these. G.K. Chesterton once wrote that: "God is strong enough to exult in monotony."

It is possible that God says every morning, "Do it again" to the sun; and every evening, "Do it again" to the moon. It may not be automatic monotony that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never gotten tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we. (goodreads.com)

Whatever ways you plan to herald the arrival of the spring of 2024, I highly recommend you make a holy common commotion with two of God’s commonest things. Form a bouquet out of your first crop of dandelions. Then, later on, do the same with daisies.

It will bring a smile to the face of our Heavenly Father, who never grows old, and makes us feel younger no matter how many springs we’ve celebrated.

Mark Katrick is a pastor and spiritual guide.

This article originally appeared on Newark Advocate: Appreciate the dandelions, daisies this spring