Good morning…
As women came through our wooden side gate on Wednesday afternoon, we lingered in the warm sunshine. With a gentle breeze tickling the wind chimes, we collected beneath our back porch. For the first time this season, we held class on our outdoor furniture amid the symphony of the birds. Continuing to journey through our book, Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times by Katherine May, we discussed chapters entitled “Snow” and “Cold Water” in seventy-something degree weather. What creative contrast!
“A snow day is a wild day, a spontaneous holiday when all the tables are turned,” we read aloud from page 167. “This one had a bit of the spirit of Halloween and a little of Christmas. It was wild and cosy at the same time; rebellious and heartwarming. Here was yet another liminal space, a crossing point between the mundane and the magical. Winter, it seems, is full of them: fleeting invitations to step out of the ordinary. Snow may be beautiful, but it is also a very adept con artist. It offers us a whole new world, but just as we buy into it, it’s whisked away.”
Each time we meet together, our deep discussions take us to a lovely liminal space, a crossing point between the mundane and the magical.
After saying our final prayer, we walked back up the sidewalk beside our Winter Jasmine vine and saw our first yellow butterfly of the season playing in the green leaves and golden blooms. Too quick to be captured on camera, this ethereal, winged creature became a fleeting memory etched in our collective minds.
Though we all agreed that we may still endure another frost before Easter morning, Lent silently shifting us from winter to spring. From brutal weather to butterflies. From death to resurrection. From one life to many lives. Wild and cosy, rebellious and heartwarming, the art of wintering invites us to step out of the ordinary.
Will we graciously accept our Creator’s invitation?
The abundance of spring colors is beginning to burst on the scene. Over time and in God’s way, eventually we will pass through the ultimate liminal space, crossing between the mundane to the magical, forever and evermore.
On that day, living waters will stream out of Jerusalem. Half of them will flow to the eastern Dead Sea; the other half will descend the hills and cross the plains to join the western Mediterranean Sea. These waters will flow throughout the dry summer as they do in the wet winter (Zechariah 14:8, VOICE).
…Sue…
