A Sense of Peace in Springtime

Spring is coming soon! While many people do enjoy the winter months for various reasons, it still seems to be universally true that people welcome Spring when it arrives. The air begins to be warmer. Birds chirp more in the morning. The days begin to last longer. Flowers shoot up and buds pop out. There is a celery-green color to the new leaves as they open up. There's a freshness in the air.

A sense of peace warms the heart.

We're taught in the Heavenly Doctrine that spring mornings are an image of angelic peace.

In the book Heaven and Hell we read this:

"As the Divine peace comes into existence from the conjunction of the Lord with heaven, and especially from the conjunction of the goodness and truth with any one angel, so when the angels are in a state of love they are in a state of peace. This is true also of a person who is being regenerated. As soon as a conjunction of good and truth comes about, which takes place especially after temptations, he comes into a state of delight from heavenly peace. This peace may be likened to morning or dawn in springtime, when, the night being passed, with the rising of the sun all things of the earth begin to live anew, the fragrance of growing vegetation is spread abroad as a result of the dew that descends, and the mild vernal temperature gives fertility to the ground and imparts pleasure to the minds of all people, and this because morning or dawn in springtime corresponds to the state of peace of angels in heaven." (Emanuel Swedenborg, Heaven and Hell #289)

Wintertime represents our spiritually difficult times - our troubled, cold and desolate states of mind. While we undergo the process of overcoming our spiritual shortcomings - doing battle with our own evil inclinations and false ideas - the Lord refreshes us with states of peace.

"When a person is in the combats of temptations, he is by turns gifted by the Lord with a state of peace, and is thus refreshed." (Swedenborg, Heavenly Secrets #1726)

"The dawn and the spring cause all things that meet the senses to be full of joy and gladness; every object draws an affection from the general one of the dawn and of the springtime. So is it with the state of peace in the Lord's kingdom: in the state of peace all celestial and spiritual things are as it were in their morning or springtide flower and smile, that is, in their happiness itself. So does the state of peace affect everything, for the Lord is peace itself." (Ibid.)

May the spring season warm your heart, and may it reflect in your life an inner sense of spiritual peace.

- Tom