Singer-songwriter Sheryl Crow memorably said about spring: “No matter how chaotic it is, wildflowers will still spring up in the middle of nowhere.” In our 2-year battle with Covid 19, her comment is most fitting. And both Mother Nature and human nature seem to agree since buds appear on the branches, daylight lasts a little longer, and we push our snow boots and earmuffs to the back of the closet. As the Covid chaos seems to be subsiding, allowing restrictions to ease, the feeling is that spring has sprung, ushering in new beginnings, a sense of hope and inspiration.

So much has been written about the season. Toni Morrison, the recipient of the1993 Nobel Prize in Literature, wrote: “When spring comes to the City, people notice one another in the road; notice the strangers with whom they share aisles and tables... It’s the time of year when the City urges contradiction most, encouraging you to buy street food when you have no appetite at all; giving you a taste for a single room occupied by you alone as well as a craving to share it with someone you passed in the street. Really there is no contradiction— rather it’s a condition…” The Ghanian founder of Smart Youth Volunteer Foundation, Lailah Gifty Akita calls spring: “A season for the soul to regain its strength.” Even comedian Robin Williams had an opinion on spring, calling it, “Nature’s way of saying Let’s Party.”

It is no coincidence that Easter and Passover are spring holidays. The renewal of nature that comes with spring amplifies the promise of redemption embedded in the historical events being commemorated by both religions. Easter celebrates the resurrection of Jesus and his victory over death. Around the same time — and often overlapping — Jewish people celebrate Passover, the holiday commemorating the Hebrews’ exodus from slavery in Egypt. In both holidays, festivals, nature, and history converge with a resounding message of hope. They are about delivery from a state of despair. Easter assures the individual that life is eternal. It offers a way out of a world beyond repair. It celebrates a religion that provided comfort to many who had lost faith in the gods of Rome. It spreads the message that the death of one has the capacity to save many. Passover summons Jews collectively into the world to repair it. Among its messages is that a tyrantlike Pharaoh could be overthrown. A nation as powerful as ancient Egypt could be defeated. Slaves could become free men. The oppressed could break the shackles of their captivity. Anything is possible, if only we dare to dream the impossible dream.

dare to dream the impossible dream. It was the biblical record of the exodus from Egypt that enabled the spirit of optimism to prevail for the followers of Martin Luther King Jr. in their quest for equal rights, because they were stirred by the vision of Moses leading his people to the Promised Land. In fact, the historic speech that King delivered at the Mason Temple in Memphis, where he went on April 3, 1968, to support sanitation workers protesting their meager wages of $1.65 an hour and deplorable working conditions, contained the prophetic line: “I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land.” He was assassinated the next day. It was ironic that many of King’s supporters, aides and confidants had urged him against expanding their focus and leaving their comfort zone to take on new causes, such as the Poor People’s Campaign which he was pushing. King would have none of it. Instead, he urged the sanitation workers to go on strike telling them: “You have to escalate the struggle a bit.” And he countered the narrow focus of his allies with: “We have moved into an era where we are called upon to raise certain basic questions about the whole society.”

We hope that the history of our nation continues to reflect the rebirth that is springtime and acknowledges Dr. King’s admonition that “change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability but comes through continuous struggle.”