Ver non una dies, non una reducit hirundo.
(Anonymous)

(pron = wair nohn oo-nah dee-ays, nohn oo-nah reh-doo-kit hih-roon-doh)

Spring is not made by one warm day nor the appearance of one swallow.

Comment: Even in the Deep South, we get those occasional days while still in the
midst of winter that sends us all running (those of us who garden, that is) to
the garden stores, buying flower/vegetable seeds and rushing home to plant a
garden. Three days later there is a deep freeze because, after all, it is
still winter. The one day was a teaser. It looked and felt and sounded like
spring (we don’t do swallows, but we have their counterparts).

So what? This proverb is suggesting that we “not count our chicks until the
eggs are hatched”. Doing so can be embarrassing and wasteful—sometimes even
dangerous. But, it also points to a reality that we can take some delight in.
In the midst of winter, we get a glimpse of coming spring. The teaser is also a
blessed promise. Spring will come. Rather than rejecting such gifts with
skepticism because, after all it’s still winter, we can receive them as an hors
d’oeuvre that anticipates the main course. This is also a reminder that nature
and, hence, human life, unfold. They do not show up as black and white slides
in a slide projector. Nature unfolds. Black and white are many, many shades
of gray before they come full form.

Wrapped up in the mundane today may come little blessings, little hors
d’oeuvres. We can be on the alert for them, and delight in them, in the
moment, when they come.