The red-osier dogwood is common in New England. It’s not a showy shrub in summertime, but it does have blooms in May and offers berries to birds in the fall.

In the winter, however, when our natural world fades into browns and greys, a red-osier dogwood’s younger branches come alive in bright blood-oranges and reds.

Our natural world is gifted a burst of color during its darkest and coldest season.

It’s like that with people, too.

Most of our lives are pretty ordinary most of the time.

Then there comes a moment when we can offer something special to those around us.

The season of cold and dark has been especially long and difficult this year. But you who have been able to care for others during the pandemic — who have worked overtime on testing and vaccination, who have been there to check and double-check on people’s welfare – you have been like the red-osier dogwood.

You have been the burst of red in a brown-and-grey world.

You have been color when there was little to catch our eye.

You have been making a difference.

Take a moment to breathe, to appreciate how wonderfully ordinary yet how wonderfully special you have been, are, and will continue to be.

Just as God intended.

John Terauds, CPE Intern