Winter’s Gifts
Building Community
The snow blower is ready to go. It is possible; of course, we will have another poor excuse for a winter, like last year, a winter that for Minnesotans would even be an embarrassment to people living in Iowa. As much as we might like to complain about certain seasons, it is disconcerting when they fail to meet some basic level of expectation. In this North Country, seasons help keep us grounded, reminding us that nothing is permanent, but rather is bound by the same dust to dust and ashes to ashes reality that encompasses all of life.
Seasons are a helpful resource for everyone who cares about their community or for that matter country. There are plenty of people who prefer avoiding winter in Minnesota and for understandable reasons. Winter can be long, cold and hard. Anything we plan during winter months is always conditional. One can never be certain things will turn out as planned or hoped. You have organized an event, purchased tickets for the theater or a game you have been looking forward to and the weather turns, the snow falls and everything is canceled. Just as with the hopes and dreams we sometimes have for our communities or nation that fail to materialize, winter carries with it the real possibility of loss and disappointment.
For the majority of us who stick it out, winter can be a challenge, but invariably it comes with its own gifts, including the reminder that what looks long, hard and cold, does not last. We get through winter with the hope and the confident faith that spring will come. Once we recognize and embrace the reality that winter is temporary we can then enter the season in a new way. This is a helpful and necessary orientation for everyone who cares about just and caring communities and a just and caring nation
Many of the very same things that we might name as the gifts of winter are the same gifts that are most needed when the dreams and expectations we have for our communities and nation fail to materialize. Immediately following this past election many people took solace in winter’s gift of tending friendships and relationships. Winter requires we be intentional in getting together with those whom we have a special bond, finding strength and joy in their company. Others in recent weeks have engaged winter’s gift of reflection, taking stock, slowing down and examining what is important, naming where our priorities lie. Others have begun recommitting themselves to the type of community or nation which we wish to see, not unlike the opportunity winter affords us to begin thinking about and planning for the spring garden, a project for our home, a trip we have been wishing to take or any host of dreams toward which we might begin taking small steps.
Folks in warmer climates no doubt have their own resources on which to draw when facing disappointment, loss and challenges, both locally and nationally. But, I am glad to live in Minnesota with its changing seasons. In the meantime, my snow blower is prepared and ready to face whatever this coming winter has to offer.
