So you must not be frightened . . . if a sadness rises up before you larger than any you have ever seen; if a restiveness, like light and cloud-shadows, passes over your hands and over all you do. You must think that something is happening with you, that life has not forgotten you, that it holds you in its hand; it will not let you fall.
— Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

A Word for Spring

I am standing in a crowd on a cool spring day, listening to the celebrated artist Edwina Sandys tell us the story about a fresh word — a bud of a word, a transforming word: a word made for Spring.

Edwina is the granddaughter of Sir Winston Churchill, that enormously important (and controversial) British leader, who was, above all, a man who knew his way around words. His gift with words helped him buoy up a beleaguered nation in the fight against Nazi Germany.

Edwina is telling us the story of how, as a child, her dear “grandpapa” once returned from a trip to America with a new and exciting word for his grandchildren.  . . . . . Click here to read this essay at Spirituality&Practice