What appears to some of us in one ‘place’ appears as something quite different to those of us in another ‘place.’ Today, one of the reasons for the variance in appearance has to do with the earth’s tilt being farthest from the sun at its North Pole, and tilted the most towards the sun at its South Pole. December 21st is the Winter Solstice, which in the Northern Hemisphere accounts for the shortest day of the year – having the least amount of daylight time – while in the Southern Hemisphere it is the longest day of the year. In the North, from this day forward, the daytime will lengthen, while in the South, the daylight hours will lessen going forward. In the Northern Hemisphere, today marks the beginning of winter, and in the Southern Hemisphere it is summer. The cycle of light has different reflections depending on where you are located on this earth. Light and darkness together contribute to our world perspective. Yet they are joined mysteriously.
The seasons of the year contribute greatly to how we experience our lives on this planet. Heat and cold and light and darkness are integral to the growth of the food that we need to nourish our bodies. In these seemingly opposing extremes – heat and coldness, light and darkness – we abide not only as physical beings, but as psychological and spiritual human beings. We have traditionally associated light and warmth with positivity and darkness and coldness with absence and other negative aspects. I am learning as I journey along in life that these seeming contraries themselves form an ever-changing base of experience that despite it’s uncertainty and indeed indiscrimination can also be the fruitful ground for unexpected newness and unlooked for hope.
It would appear that our reading today from SONG OF SONGS (Sg 2:8-14 ) is taken from the point of view of winter ending:
“Arise, my beloved, my dove, my beautiful one, and come!
“For see, the winter is past, the rains are over and gone.
The flowers appear on the earth…
and the vines, in bloom, give forth fragrance.
Arise, my beloved, my beautiful one, and come!
The poet that has just described before the above passage how he/she is being chased by their lover, is now repeating to us what this Grand Lover has spoken.
“Winter is past!” For Game of Thrones fans, we know that the whole storyline in that show revolves around the very opposite. But again, it seems to me that part of the wonder of our world and our lives, our God and our relationships, has to do with ‘newness’ coming to us in ways least expected and in oftentimes ‘defiantly.’ I’m hopeful that we have all experienced one time in our lives that ‘despite’ all of the unpleasantness, suffering, and loss, something (or Someone) appeared quite unexpectedly into the equation and offered something that allowed at least a small yet significant alteration to the circumstances. We tend to look for ‘bigness’ to truly change situations, wherein I believe that the small and often unnoticed ‘flowers that appear’ in situations carry as much if not more significance than the big ones.
Perhaps this is another way of describing what we are celebrating during Advent. Inasmuch as we are in a ‘holding’ or ‘waiting’ pattern, perhaps we are challenged also to become aware of how much we are focusing on WHAT we are looking for during this time rather than HOW we are looking, i.e., how we are seeking the God Who is coming to us? Do we know that He is chasing us many times from behind, where we fail to look?
One need only turn on the news for less than a minute to become immediately aware that our world seems to be in ‘big’ trouble, with so many things ‘wrong’ going on. We get angry, frustrated, sad, and even despondent. And then the question may arise as to WHAT needs to be done in order for things to ‘get better.’ That question can seem like Mt. Everest in the potential for possible answers. Indeed the question can act as a depersonalization of the matter by placing it at a distance from us. It becomes some ‘thing’ that needs to change or some ‘one’ that may need to stop doing something or even go away completely.
Sometimes rephrasing the question can make it more personal and more concrete. Instead of asking WHAT can be done, sometimes the best place to start could be, HOW am I seeing all of this? This is not a navel-gazing analytical project necessarily, but in fact one that can lead to the deepening of engaging responsibility and even compassion for those very people and things that we consider to be very ‘wrong.’ This can come from a jolting realization that in some way, I am ‘part’ of all this that is ‘wrong.’ If we can stay with this without beating ourselves up or excusing ourselves from it, the season can begin to change. The compassion that we can hopefully feel for ourselves will grow outward towards others. It may be imperceptible at first. Nothing by appearance may seem to have changed at all – yet it is changing, growing. A flower is beginning to bloom in winter!
Many flowers bloom during the season of winter. In Southern Louisiana, roses and Japanese Camelia are some of the flowers that bloom during what we call ‘winter.’ Although, a Louisiana winter cannot perhaps compare to Chicago or Buffalo, New York, nonetheless, cold is cold to the one who is experiencing it. And it has always been such a consolation for me to witness these durable blooms putting on such a wondrous show amidst an otherwise dark and dead-looking landscape. It is a mysterious and colorful lighting up within the sometimes dismal nature of the season.
In Luke’s Gospel (Lk 1:39-45), we hear how immediately after the traumatic experience of Mary learning of her own divine pregnancy, she gets a little reassurance in her odd and scary predicament with news that her close relative, one who was thought to be barren, is also pregnant. Perhaps at a moment where Mary was feeling overwhelmed by this divine ‘task’ she has been given and accepted, she receives a small piece of hope in learning that some other ‘unheard of’ event is developing in the life of another close to her, Elizabeth.
When we receive some type of encouragement, unexpected as it may be in times of ‘darkness’ and uncertainty, it can act as a magnificent psychological and spiritual boon beyond telling. The mystery may remain hidden for WHY this may be happening in our lives, whatever it may be (suffering, loss, death, pain, etc.), but we are graced with the ‘companionship’ of someone else along the journey with us. It’s that Loving God who is chasing us down in the Song of Songs, now running beside us, and perhaps just ahead of us beaconing us forward!
We hear of how the joy that Mary had over hearing of Elizabeth’s pregnancy prompted her to go visit Elizabeth, who at the sound of Mary’s greeting herself was comforted and encouraged in a surprising and unexpected way:
“And how does this happen to me,
that the mother of my Lord should come to me?
For at the moment the sound of your greeting reached my ears,
the infant in my womb leaped for joy.”
On this day of the least amount of light during the year in the area of the world that I live, I am hopeful in the midst of all the terrible and inexplicable situations going on around me. In this, I know I am part of it. I belong to it and I belong to all the people who seem more affected by the situation that I may be. I have a responsibility, small or large, to look for and even be the small ‘flower in winter,’ that will shine through in some small way, brightening the landscape, hopefully offering some healing to those around me with whom I meet, like the vine in the scriptures that offers its fragrance to others. At the same time I will hold myself open to the very same hope and healing that others can and do offer me!
Then my prayer can be that all the ‘differences’ that seem to divide others from me and me from others, whether they be geographical, cultural, perspectival, moral, religious, political, whatever they may be, I pray that these ‘difference’ will not disappear but become themselves the opportunity to ask questions that can serve to honor, embrace and share the mysterious divine diversity that bloomed into human history so many years ago by way of a feeding trough in an abandoned stable down the road from an over-booked lodge!
Peace,
Thomas