Wintering

We really haven’t had much of a winter so far this year, here in western Pennsylvania. I think a lot of people braced themselves and thought, “Well, here we go,” when we woke up to a dusting of snow on November 1, but overall, that was only one of a few bouts of flurries.

This week, however, we seem to be getting it in full force, blown in by some heavy winds: some snow and ice, but most notably, a deep freeze.

So here we are; winter has arrived, and the furnace seems to be running non-stop, and ’tis the season for sweaters and slippers and blankets and all the hot drinks. The mornings are dark and the evenings have seemed exceptionally long lately.

And it never ceases to amaze me how humanity is surprised by winter, every single time, as though somehow it managed to sneak up on us, unexpected.

I recently re-read the book called “Wintering” by Katherine May. It’s about bearing through winter, both literally – dealing with cold and darkness – and figuratively – going through a hard time. I had read it a while ago because I heard good reviews about it, and I thought it was a good read, but then I read it again as I was both going through a hard time and literally going into winter, and found it helpful.

Katherine makes the point that, just like real winter, we can’t exactly be surprised by the arrival of difficult times; it’s impossible to avoid them. But that doesn’t mean we’re supposed to just sit through summer and fall, weighed down by the doom and gloom of anticipating winter. The point is to take the good times along with the bad, and make the best of each as they come.

Summer

Summer is for getting our fill of sunshine and fresh air, collecting memories and good times as abundantly as the fruits and vegetables summer brings.

Fall

Fall is a transition. We collect the harvest and preserve it; we know that we can expect winter, so we prepare. We are proactive. We do what we can to make wintering comfortable, because we’ve been there; we know what to expect.

Winter

And then, winter. It’s dark and cold and blustery. We’re never sure from one day to the next just how deep the winter may become. There may be days on end of overcast half-light. Then maybe an unexpected day of sunlight, so bright you feel like you’ve been in a cave for a month. But the sunlight tricks you, for it is often accompanied by a deep cold. Then more dark days.

You do what you need to do. You burrow into blankets and other layers. You sleep longer at night. You crave hot drinks and hot meals. You burn candles to offset the lack of light.

And then,

when it seems like it’s been always winter but never Christmas, the thaw. Springtime returns, and with it, the renewal of life, and it’s been so long since you’ve felt it, it feels brand new. You shed your heavy layers and feel refreshed.

And life continues, a cycle.

Wouldn’t it be grand if we could do without winter? To not feel the piercing bite of the cold wind, to not have to deal with the lack of light?

But alas, winter – both the literal and the figurative – serves a couple of purposes:

It’s a time of rest. Just like the rest of nature, human beings are not meant to hustle and work and produce endlessly all year long. We need cycles, times of productivity, of creativity, but also of rest and retreat and reflection. We need a time of dormancy, like a tree preparing its energy for full bloom come spring. (Do we even know how to be dormant for a time?) Maybe this is also time to just trust in God and to retreat in prayer.

The cold of winter gives greater meaning to the heat of summer. If we didn’t know hard times, would we truly know the greatness of God’s love? It’s one thing to know that God is faithful; it’s quite another thing to experience God’s faithfulness, especially when you’re in the figurative mid-winter.

I pray that you’re not in the midst of hard times right now. But although we wish and pray that hard times stay away, we can learn to weather the storm – and maybe embrace it as a time of rest – with faithful God there as a flame, a source of warmth and light.