Why we need winter...

Psalm 147:12-20

Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem!
Praise your God, O Zion!
For he strengthens the bars of your gates;
he blesses your children within you.
God grants peace within your borders;
fills you with the finest of wheat.
Sends out the command to the earth;
the word runs swiftly.
God gives snow like wool;
and scatters frost like ashes.
God hurls down hail like crumbs—
who can stand before the cold?
God sends out a word, and melts them;
God makes the wind blow, and the waters flow.
Declares a word to Jacob,
God's statutes and ordinances to Israel.
God has not dealt thus with any other nation;
they do not know his ordinances. Praise the Lord!

Since late October we have been marking time until winter. The trees began to lose their leaves and the animals began the yearly process of gaining weight and finding places to hibernate (yet we call them dumb animals). We too were preparing for the coming of Old Man Winter. The yearly rituals of winterizing the house, the car, the kids, preparing our homes and ourselves for the long months of cold and snow. For most of us it seems an inconvenience to go through winter; the ice, the salt, the dirty cars. But those are only inconveniences if we let them.

Winter would teach us something about our spiritual lives. We don't often think of winter as a spiritual period of the year, Spring has that distinct honor, but winter more than any season has the possibility to help us find our spiritual center.

Winter call us to take time to rest, to let the ground of our being go fallow if only for a few moments. Farmers will tell you that the soil needs times to rest, to gather minerals and to lie dormant in preparation for the coming crop. Our souls are no different that fertile ground. We need times for the leaving off of the doings in our lives. Winter invites us to allow ourselves to go fallow and find periods of rest not just for our bodies but for our souls. Without that fallowing we make ourselves busy with the minutia of our lives.

One of my friends has said winter is like a long held breath and I think she is right. It is the earth taking a breath before setting off on the journey through the growth of Spring. We too need to take that breath, that pause, to allow our souls to prepare for what comes next. We need winter to teach us that we are not immune from needing to breathe deeply. That breath speaks of possibility, of things to come, of hope for what lays ahead.

So even though winter may sometimes be messy and barren and cold, we need that time of pause. Our souls need that deep breath of Winter to prepare for what lies ahead.