a prophetic dusting of sacred snow...

This morning we awoke to a light dusting of dry snow. Resembling the dream-like frosting proclaimed by James Taylor, the unofficial Bard of the Berkshires, it is a visual answer to my prayers. I am fascinated by snow fall - and revel in it most of the time. Like most everyone else in these hills, I hate the snow when it becomes ugly and slushy. And long about the end of February I am ready for it to leave for another season. But a bold and fulsome storm blanketing everything it touches in white silence? Walking in the woods during or just after such an event? Pure grace to me. And now that I rarely have any place I have to be, I love the snow even more. 

With one qualification: I love our niveous precipitation only so long as I don't have to drive in it at night for long distances. My life is too short for such adventures in uncertainty and potential danger. The poet, Mark Noll, captures something of the paradox of a snowfall in "Snow."

The snow falls down, fluffing the city to death.
Children and those at peace like sails, 
catch the surge, mastered giggle-like, and roll
into the snow across the wide, wide spaces
white; the wraith - lovely, inscrutable - calls.
Cars begin to sputter and curse; one by oone
withered white they die
as buttoned, capped, and booted, you and I
go dancing, tromping, dancing by.

Yesterday, all was rain. Two days prior, the wetlands and woods basked in a late autumn sun. But now...? Our one burning bush with leaves still stands proud but fragile against last night's changes. But it won't be able to last long. Soon it must surrender to the stark emptiness of the season like the rest of her sisters. In the anthology, Winter: A Spiritual Biography of the Season, a posting from "The Daily Hallel - Hallel Sheb'khol yom" caught my eye:

In Jewish liturgy, the Daily Hallel are the last six songs in the Book of Psalms: Psalms 145-150. They are psalms of praise, the last five of which begin with "Halleluyah!" In this tradition, the snow and wintry ice too come from God's hand... But in this translation, taken from My People's Prayer Book Volume Three, the emphasis is on the participation of winter in all the affairs of creation. The only appropriate human response to frost and cold, suggest the psalms, is one of praise.
(Winter, p. 152)

Consider Psalm 147: "God sends his command earthward and his word runs quickly. He grants snow like wool and scatters frost like ashes. He casts out his ice like crumbs; who can stand before his cold? He sends out his word and melts them. By his wind He causes the water to flow. He declares his word to Jacob, his law and statues to Israel. He has not done so for every nation who do not know his ways. Halleluyah!" (I would argue this point theologically that the Lord is loving, inclusive grace and the property of no one religion, gender, nation, or tradition.)

Or Psalm 148: "Fire and hail, snow and fog, stormy wind, all fulfill his word. The mountains and all the hills, the fruit tree and all cedars, wild beasts and all animals, bugs and birds and fowl, rulers of the earth and all nations, princes and judges of the earth, young men and women alike, the old with the young: Let them praise the Lord, for God's name alone is exalted... Halleluyah!"

If September and October are outposts on our pilgrimage of letting go with the 
trees, shrubs, and plants serving as visual mentors; then November becomes the portal through which we pass to practice our season of emptiness. Autumn incrementally leads us into the inevitability of winter - and each stage of this journey is instructive to those with eyes to see. For decades I mostly felt the melancholia of fall: it was a bitter sweet season to me that offered the bounty of apple cider and pumpkins only to have it stolen quickly away by a bleak and flinty midwinter. I dreaded the shift. Cringed even as I shuffled through fallen leaves like a child. Knowing all too well that the colors and light would be too soon gone. But living here - intentionally listening to the land while watching the wetlands icons - is changing my heart and my perception. Yes, autumn is fleeting - of course it is beyond my control - but each week offers me a chance to practice letting go so that when the frigid fates of winter arrive (as they always do) I am ready. Or at the very least, engaged enough to relinquish what is gone so that I might sing "Halleluyah!"

In this, the light snow becomes prophetic. It is both ordained and sacred. For no matter how much I might wish otherwise, winter is almost here. How did Fr. Richard Rohr put it recently: "Reality is the greatest ally of God for God is fully aligned with Reality, both in life and death."

The most profound insight in the history of humankind is that we should seek to live in accord with reality. Indeed, living in harmony with reality may be accepted as a formal definition of wisdom. If we live at odds with reality (foolishly), we will be doomed, but if we live in proper relationship with reality (wisely), we shall be saved.

Having refused to race through the early days of autumn, I an learning to savor this month of transition. We created an autumn tableau on the front porch and strung white lights through the corn, gourds and pumpkins as a balance to the early darkness that envelops us all by 4 pm in the afternoon. I added tiny "fairy" lights in the front room and sun room, too to evoke candles of hope in the encroaching darkness. And I dug out more tea light candles to adorn my All Saints/All Souls day family altar. We raked leaves into the garden beds, trimmed back trees, finally washed our winter gear, repaired the deck, and made a quiet trip to the pumpkin farm to walk around in those grand and wild treasurers. 

My entree into November is far from perfect, I get as much wrong as I get right. But it is a small step into the freedom of letting go. And small steps are what define the spiritual journey. Henri Nouwen once wrote that none of us know how to love consistently. What matters is not our failures, but our willingness to let them go and live into forgiveness.

Love among people is not first of all a feeling or an emotion or a

sentiment but a decision of the will to be faithful to each other. . . . There are really no people whom we can love with unlimited feelings of love. We are all imperfect, broken, sinful people, but we are able to love one another because we are able to will to be faithful and constantly forgive each other’s unfaithfulness.

That is how I see my pilgrimage into the wisdom of the seasons. That is how I am learning to measure my descent as well. Incrementally. Intentionally. Faithfully returning to grace and forgiveness over and over for others as well as myself. Today I give thanks to God for an old teacher, Fr. Ed Hays, who long ago invited me into the reality I am just now grasping.

O sacred season of Autumn, be my teacher,
for I wish to learn the virtue of contentment....
I live in a society that is ever-restless,
always eager for more mountains to climb,
seeking happiness through more and more possessions...
Teach me to take stock of what I have given and received,
may I know that it's enough,
that my striving can cease
in the abundance of God's grace...
As you, O Autumn, take pleasure in your great bounty,
let me also take delight
in the abundance of the simple things in life
which are the true source of joy.
With the golden glow of peaceful contentment
may I truly appreciate this autumn day.