Like much of John Rutter's choral music, "I Believe in Springtime" is a statement of faith.
But what stays with me is a single line: "I believe in green things; all the gifts of earth."
Green things. Plants that, through photosynthesis, take water and carbon dioxide and capture the Sun's energy to make food — releasing oxygen as they do. It's so familiar we rarely stop to consider how extraordinary that is.
Geologists estimate that Earth is about four and a half billion years old. For much of that time, it was lifeless. Then, over three billion years ago, the first green organisms appeared — tiny algae that began to change the atmosphere itself. They made complex life possible. They made our planet what it is: vibrant, living — utterly unlike the barren worlds around us, or even our own silent Moon.
Artemis II Commander Reid Wiseman, after his recent journey around that moon, said the experience moved him so deeply that, despite not considering himself religious, he asked to see a chaplain — and broke down in tears.
From space, Earth appears miraculous.
But we don't have to leave it to feel that.
Every spring, the same quiet transformation begins again. Light becomes life. Air becomes breathable. The land turns green.
And perhaps that's what it means to believe in springtime — not just to admire it, but to recognize, in those green things, that we are living inside the miracle itself.
