hibernating...

Six years ago the view from my study window looked like this:

Today it looks like this:

And tomorrow? Who knows - as more snow is predicted. Finally I am getting reconnected to my world. Without belaboring the point, this past month has been a bunch of maladies that not only zapped my energy, but also my enthusiasm for being outside. To be sure, it has been healing for me to hibernate. It feels rather like one of my favorite winter graphics: a stunning pencil drawing of a young woman burrowed underground with her books and animal friends.

It was not in my plans to be so isolated so soon in the season. I prefer to walk in the woods during these early days of winter. I wanted to be in Ottawa with my friends at L'Arche during Advent. And play a few more music gigs, too. But as the mystic Meister Eckhart teaches, "Reality is the will of God." It can always be better, but we have to start with what is real. No prolonged magical thinking for those who seek to live in the spirit. So, I have mostly made the best of my solitude: resting, reading, lighting the Advent candles, and savoring the quiet. The poet, Dave Edmands, catches some of the mystery of hibernating during this season of increasing darkness when he writes:

In autumn I watch you, bear like, preparing your room
Against winter's weight. The bear, having eaten its way
To sleep, fills its cramped room with the breath of wild berry.
The snow batters its dirt walls, blankets them
In the silvery whiteness of a February moon.
The bear stirs ever so slightly, lost in the womb
Of its own winter dreams.

You, in your bear-like room, watch the days of winter
Grow long with white. Like the bear, you also have
Stored autumn, hanging your walls
With wild flower and root..
Daily, you move about your lavender and thyme,
Uneasy with your dreams of spring.

In March, the sun slides across the western sky,
Remaining a few minutes longer each day.
The bear, giant world that it is, makes one last turn on its axis,
While you, sensing the move of the bear,
Rotate each small pot just so,
Gathering the new and lingering light of a wakeful season.

I am in no hurry for March to dawn or the wakeful season of new challenges in the light. For now I am content to take it slow. In solitude. There are gifts to wrap. A holiday letter to write. Quiet prayers to share. Next week we will travel to Brooklyn to feast with part of the family on Christmas Day. We'll arrive early to settle in, go to the Christmas Eve family Eucharist and pageant at Trinity/St Paul's, and return thanks for the gift of life that thrives in small ways beyond the current political posting and fear mongering.

One thing the Christmas story teaches is that there have always been tyrants and suffering. And there always will be. But while their reign is often vicious and deadly, it never wins. Love wins. Over and over and eternally: love wins. Like the seasons that ebb and flow and ripen and pass, the will of the holy love is built into the fabric of creation. When I came upon this FB meme earlier in the day, it spoke to my Advent- drenched heart.

This one did, too.

credits:
+ https://www.pinterest.com/pin/390335492681145974/?autologin=true
+ https://www.facebook.com/nakedpastor/photos/p.2761559053873587/2761559053873587/?type=1&theater