In the rapidly increasing sunlight of early spring, the warming Earth is bursting forth with new life. Joining the light blue periwinkle, bright yellow and white Daffodils and lemony Forsythia are rows of beautiful white Cherry trees—a gift from decades ago of a sister city in Japan—and purplish Sugar Magnolias. For the second year in a row, the Sugar Magnolia have escaped the hard frosts that normally burn their delicate leaves, a result of our changing climate.

Reaching up from the still-cool ground, wild onions growing amidst grass, ramps, garlic, Lemon Balm, arugula, lettuces, peas, and many other plants of the early garden dot the still muddy ground with green. As we did last year, I have gathered wild onion sprouts that are found as a nuisance throughout our community and with ramps and other ingredients fashioned the “Appalachian French Onion Soup” of my wife’s creation. The soup is made two weeks earlier than last year, a mark of how early the spring has come in this year’s annual cycle.

As individuals and small communities, we can do little to alter the progression of history that is causing climate change. It is up to us to adapt to these changes through taking part in the promise of the Earth’s river of life flowing into distant and unforeseeable future generations.

This spring, our friend with the Maple Syrup farm provided us with hope that such adaptation can thrive in spite of the challenges. After a year of tremendous personal hardship and need, our friend faced a so-called winter that rarely saw the true, lasting cold essential to Maple harvests. Over the past decade, our friend has adapted to the changing of winter in our community, relearning her skills and schedules to meet the needs of the changing season.

This year, overcoming her hardships with the help of friends and her own native intelligence, skills and toil, she returned to her work with the Maple trees, tapping trees, maintaining pipelines and boiling the freshly harvested sap into delicious, sweet golden syrup. Despite all the challenges, her adapting to the changing conditions succeeded.

“It has been the best year ever,” she told my wife. Reflecting on her overcoming of travails, she said, “I could write a book.” In a world of trials and tribulations, her story provides an example of hope for transcending humanity’s many woes.

As our state moved towards a stay at home order to slow the spread of the worldwide pandemic, my wife and I hosted our annual Saint Patrick’s Day visit with our friend. We opened our Irish Red ale, which was light and enjoyable, and spent hours visiting with our friend. While the world increasingly turned its attention to the growing problem, we discussed our lives, our community and people we know. After I left to prepare for bed, my wife and our friend continued to talk and, saying their goodbyes, gave each other a non-socially distancing hug.

As the pandemic broke through the perennial political self-obsession of US media and increasingly crashed through the self-satisfied but disgruntled entitlement of our national consciousness, our local community began to respond with a gratifying strength. Using networks our food club had established to support the local economy, the club is in the midst of delivering over $1,500 of food to about 30 households. Our bulk food provider recorded over 300 orders, including ours, and, step-by-step, began to methodically fill the orders while maintaining its low prices and consistent quality. The club also began ramping up for the new season, reaching out to our summer produce supplier and preparing for contingencies for a new business model to deal with the challenges of the pandemic. To our community’s good fortune, the local growers promise an abundance of healthy, delicious produce in the face of the struggles of the outer world.

After about ten days of my wife and I remaining at home—where I worked remotely during the day while my wife spent her time cleaning our house and cooking—my wife decided to travel to her daughter’s family home to help babysit while her daughter took time to catch up on housework. Following discussions I had with my wife, I drove her out to stay at their home for several days, avoiding the risks of coming and going. I left my wife at the doorstep, not approaching the young family. I waved at the baby girl in my stepdaughter’s arms, calling out my love for the young life who could not understand why I didn’t greet her with a hug and kiss. My heart tugged at me, seeing the sadness in the eyes of the dear baby girl.

At the end of the week, when I go to pick up my wife, we plan a non-socially distancing meal. I have offered to make Appalachian French Onion soup from freshly harvested wild onion sprouts and ramps, along with rosemary roasted roots of potatoes, carrots, turnips, onions, sunchoke, sweet potatoes and daikon radishes. For all the precautions that I take so seriously, the prospect of a meal with loved ones in their remote country home is a gift that I cannot turn down.

The pandemic will undoubtedly take its toll on humanity and the arrogance of the urban human god, who constantly proclaims his omnipotence over the natural world. Those of us adults who survive will remember this time of worry and trauma in ways that those too young will not know. Yet, like all generational events and trials—the American war in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, the Civil Rights struggle, the fall of the Soviet Union, the crisis of 2001 and the American wars in Afghanistan and Iraq—these times will fade from future memory. The Earth’s river of life will proceed, bringing forth new life each year, celebrating the abundance of summer and fall, and returning to dormancy in expectation of the spring and the promise of the Earth. As time passes, the greatest threat to humanity will remain humanity: our ethno-religious and class wars, our rampant industrial consumption and patriarchy’s ruthless subjection of many women and children to the dictates of men who are bullies and sexual predators in their families or communities.

Waiting in a drive in teller at a bank, I happened to see an old friend and local food activist in the car next to me. I rolled down my window and called to her, catching up briefly on her life and trials. As we talked, she mentioned seeing the Japanese Cherry trees and other flowers of spring.

“Isn’t it funny,” she said, “All the beauty, like all this isn’t happening.”

“Yes,” I replied, “After all, for the Earth, it’s just another average day.”

“Yeah,” she said, turning away and pausing to consider the Earth’s providence.