At Little Farm in Naples, we still have a good two feet of snow most everywhere, hip deep in a few places where the arctic wind deposited its blowing snow all winter. It is hard to imagine that, come August, most of us will be complaining about how hot we are.

Our sunflowers will be 10 feet tall and blooming. The tomatoes will be ready to harvest, and we will have been canning pole beans in our overheated kitchens for weeks. We will sit on our porches and screened in gazebos in the evenings, fanning ourselves and hoping for a breeze to cool us.

Here in Maine, we expect drastic weather changes. We are used to going from cold to hot, white to green, bare fields to vegetable and flower gardens. Seasonal changes fascinate me, not because of the extremes, but because of the subtle shifts that also occur, unnoticeable because they happen in places hidden to us – and because they remind me of just how God touches our world.

Early perennials begin to wake up. Not many days after the snow has melted near a warm foundation, crocuses will bloom.

When we lived in Cumberland, the snow in a small area some 4 by 3 feet melted first, and tiny white snowdrops blossomed, not giving a hoot that the rest of yard still sat under a foot of wintry mix.

Even on the coldest night, bees in my two hives surround the queen, flexing their wing muscles enough to maintain a hive temperature of 50 to 55 degrees. When the queen begins to lay eggs, the rest of the hive responds by raising the temperature to 70 degrees or more. Once the first nectar flows (dandelions here in Maine), the hive, which has appeared unoccupied all winter, explodes with activity – hive cleaning, nectar and pollen gathering – all culminating in summertime honey production.

For me, the most amazing instance of these subtle seasonal developments is when the sap begins to flow in the 60 maples trees we tap. The weather is likely to be blustery; I wear mittens and a wool hat. A fire still burns in our woodstove. The snow may be three feet deep, but when the temperatures rise above freezing during the day and fall below freezing at night, though you cannot hear it and the only way you can see it is as it drips into a jug, the sap is flowing. The tree is coming to life for another spring.

All of creation is astounding – and spring in Maine is no exception. I find these months of hidden changes to be a metaphor for God still speaking in the world and for the trust we are called to have that such is the case.

These tiny transformations remind me that, though the Spirit may not always be overtly present and active to us, the Spirit is there nonetheless – swirling about in ways we may be unaware of, awakening us to lives of compassion and justice.

The Rev. Nancy Foran is the pastor at Raymond Village Community Church (United Church of Christ).