The First Day of Winter

Winter Solstice

            “You can't get too much winter in the winter.” Robert Frost

Today is the first day of winter. The northern expanse of the US knows this already, buried as they are under an avalanche of snow. As much as most of us don't like to be cold, we welcome winter this year. Every season has its gifts and the gift of winter is water. Whether it comes in the form of rain, as is the case here in the deep south, or snow and ice, we need winter's water if we're to have a prosperous spring and summer.

Today, I will carry firewood to the porch for burning over the holidays, and I will lay out a seven-circuit labyrinth on the church grounds so that people can walk it on New Year's Eve. This time of year, some Christians make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land to celebrate the birth of the Christ child. For most of us, that journey is out of the question, so we make it symbolically by walking a labyrinth. We walk along the circuitous path to the center to make a request, or to lay down a burden, and then out again by the same unobstructed path, leaving behind the sorrows and resentments of the old year in order to start afresh in the new.

Albert Camus wrote: “In the depths of winter I finally learned that there was in me and invincible summer.” We have been through a terrible time in this country beginning with 9/11, through wars and recessions, we've seen our star dim and our certainty frayed at the edges. Last week's grisly shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary, the fourth such murderous rampage this year alone, was a turning point. We are deeply saddened and subdued. We have taken our focus away from what is truly important and focused instead on getting even. Our politics is a reflection of that.

Winter is the season for looking within and asking the hard questions. Who do we want to be going forward? Are we, in fact, a nation seeking revenge, or a nation seeking peace? Are we able to unite, or are we hopelessly divided? Will we find that invincible summer within, or will we unravel in our determination to have our way? The jury is still out.

As for each of us, we must ponder our role in making this world a better place, a safer place—for the birth of the Christ child, for the prosperity of our own children, and for the good of all the children of this world.

                                                  In the spirit,

                                                      Jane