Onset of winter means adapting to, marveling at nature
There it is.
Up on the mountain-top.
That white stuff - "termination dust" - here one day, gone awhile, then back again. One of these days, it will start creeping lower - and lower - and lower.
My office window looks out upon Mount Roberts and gives me a great vantage point from which to observe winter's first tentative touch. How advantageous it is, I think to myself, to be able to see winter coming. It gives me time to prepare, to dig the studded tires out of the back of the garage, to make the appointment to have them mounted and the car winterized, to turn off the hose bibs, disconnect the hose, coil it and store it in the garage (where the tires were, of course).
It is not a date on the calendar that prompts this flurry of activity but the very tangible reality of being able to look up and visually confirm that winter is upon us. Yes, this T.D.E.W.S. (Termination Dust Early Warning System) is quite convenient. Alas, it is not one hundred percent reliable.
There are the occasions (so I'm told by the "old-timers" when you go to bed expecting a pretty day ahead and awake instead of two feet of that white stuff all over the ground, all over the road, all over the sidewalk and steps, all over everything! Your car is a pleasantly rounded white hump. The headlights peer out like the eyes of a beagle pup from under a white fleece blanket. Winter, capricious spirit that it is, did not preview it's coming. It just arrived.
In some ways, I suppose, all this is a sort of parable of life. There are Springtime seasons - times in our lives when everything is fresh, new and growing or re-awakening. There are summer seasons - times when everything is going great, the warm and sunny times of life. Then there are the winter seasons - when life cools off, when difficulties fall upon you, when problems impede your way and you have to dig yourself out and get going again.
Sometimes the winter seasons of our life are like the TDEWS. We can see the "symptoms," the shape of things to come, from afar. This gives us time to prepare-to organize our business affairs, to make that visit of call to a loved one, to schedule that doctor's visit, or to set our spiritual house in order. Knowing what we will be facing gives us time to prepare, both mentally and physically.
But there are also the times when we awake to find the day has brought the unexpected. The doctor's office calls: your "routine" x-ray has disclosed a mass. The telephone rings, "We hate to have to tell you this, but..." With numb fingers and unbelieving eyes you read and re-read the note that tells you your loved one has left you for another. So we call our friends and our pastor, and we talk, and share, and weep, and pray and plan. We begin the "digging out" process, so that we can get going again and live life as fully as we can.
There is also another facet or face of winter to consider. That is, that winter has it's own beauty if we only look for it. For some, "that white stuff" is just an obstacle, something to be pushed aside instead of taking time to consider it's intricate, crystalline structure. Yet these miniature diamonds are worth marveling over, whether as individual flakes, as sculpted flakes, a sculpted drift or a miles-long glacier.
Winter also means adapting, trading hiking boots for cross-country skis and sweat shirts for parkas. It means allowing extra time for our journey, so that we do not have to hurry and rush and endanger ourselves or others.
So when we find ourselves in a winter season of life, we need to look also for what it has brought to us that is good or beautiful. It maybe the steadfastness of a friend or a revealing of the depth of our spirit. And we need to adapt - to go on living, to try new activities, to slow down and really see and know and enjoy the people and places around us.
The termination dust has melted. But I know it's lurking up there somewhere. It's coming. And, you know, I'm looking forward to it.
Ron Covey is a pastor at Douglas Community United Methodist Church.