Making Peace with Winter - Or at Least an Attempt
Sermon by Steve Edington
December 5, 2004
I'm thinking back to one year ago; one year ago this Sunday, I mean, when our Sunday morning service turned out to not be a service at all. Around the middle of the day on Saturday - the day before - it began to snow, and it snowed and snowed and snowed throughout the rest of the day, the rest of the night, and on into Sunday morning. Major league snow, we're talking here. We called off church school. Sandy told the choir to stay home. I decided to not go with the service itself; but figured instead I'd just come down here, open up the building, and see who else might be crazy enough to also make their way here. As it turned out, about a dozen other crazies showed up.
Well, now that we're here, what do we do? We'd planned to put up our holiday decorations after the service - just as is planned for today - so we hauled them all out and started putting them up; after putting on a pot of coffee, that is. I don't remember who braved the ladder to hang up the red banners, but they got put in place along with everything else. By around 11:30 everything was done, the extra stuff put away, the coffee pot and cups cleaned and shelved, and we all went back out in the snow - which had finally stopped falling - and went home. (And one year later when I schedule sermon on "I Hate Winter" it must be close to 50 degrees out there! So what are you gonna do?)
That morning of one year ago provided for me one of the things - one of the very few things - I actually like about winter. That is to say, when it gets so severe that it puts an end to all of your regularly scheduled plans. There was a certain kind of coziness to be found with just a few of us in this room putting up the decorations in a quiet and unhurried way. Whatever seemingly important "Holiday Stuff" we each and all had to attend to out there somewhere was, at least for a day or two, not so important after all. The workings of winter, again, at least momentarily, trumped our numerous human pursuits and activities, and put us in a setting where we could, in an unhurried and unrushed way, be in easy company with one another. A few of us shared a little time, and a little activity, with each other and then we returned to our respective abodes.
I went home thinking that maybe this is the way we are actually supposed to behave and act at this time of year. I really think the major tension of this season - in our part of the world - is that nature provides us with all kinds of perfectly good and understandable reasons to slow down, hunker down, lay low, and not expend a whole lot of energy for a time; while at the very same time we humans turn around and behave in a more frantic manner than we do at any other time of year. I have a sneaking suspicion that it's the bears who have got this whole winter thing best figured out: Just go curl up in a cave somewhere and get in a nice long nap until it's all over! Sure makes a heck of a lot of sense to me.
I honestly can't figure if its winter as such that I dislike more, or if it's the ways in which we try to act as if we do like it. A quick story to illustrate: In the summer of 1974 I had just taken a campus ministry position at a University in central Wisconsin. I was getting ready to move there from the relatively - relatively, please note I'm saying - temperate climes of southern Indiana. On a hot August day I made my way around Stevens Point, Wisconsin looking for an apartment. I was single at the time. I was not all that picky about where, or how, I lived. So I soon found me a place in a decent enough apartment complex. A very pleasant young lady, who was the apartment complex office manager, showed me around. She had a perky, wholesome way about her that so many Upper Midwest folk seem to have, and that Garrison Keillor likes to make such a thing about.
As she and I walked through the parking lot I noticed that at the head of each parking space there was a three to four foot metal pole coming up out of the ground with an electrical outlet affixed to it. I'd never seen such things before so I asked what they were for. In a rather upbeat way the office manager said, "Oh, you'll need to get this thing from an auto supply place so you can plug your car into the socket here in the wintertime so it won't freeze up on you." It must have been the Lou Grant type of look on my face that made this Mary Richards type decide she had to reassure me: "Oh really, you'll love winter up here. There's skiing and ice skating and ice fishing and winter carnivals and ice sculptures, and all kinds of stuff like that. It's just great!"
This sweet young lady was just plain too nice for me to get grouchy with, so I did manage some kind of pleasant response as we went off to sign a lease. But I decided I'd just witnessed a classic, text-book case of denial. The trick is to convince oneself just what an out and out happy good time winter is, as a way of not having to face the basic, immutable truth that its actually rather, well, terrible. Living in northern climate zones for most of my life, I've really come to believe that the essential function of winter sports is to provide us with a device for denying the basic cruelty of the season itself. OK, it could be the other way around. Maybe I'm the one who's really in denial: Denying, in this case, the essential joy of winter activity so I can maintain my curmudgeonly stance towards winter because somewhere in my subconscious strata I actually love to hate it. I'll let you figure it out.
You'd think I'd make my peace with it at some point. Except for that one brief sojourn in southern Indiana - and it ain't exactly the tropics there either - I have lived in the northern regions of this country ever since I left my home in southern West Virginia in the late 1960s to go to theological school in Rochester, New York. But I've never been able to get with the program - the winter-in-the-North program, I mean - and I'll be sixty on my next birthday. So I am just flat-out beyond help at this point in my life, and that, I'm afraid, is that. For all of you who truly love and feel blessed by outdoor activity at this time of year, and who can wax poetic about the joys of walking, or snow-shoeing, or cross-country skiing through miles of bare-treed, white woods, or gliding across a frozen lake - I can only say, God bless and go do it. I honestly envy you. I truly wish I could get the same uplift from winter activity as I know many of you do. But I will keep smiling, and keep up my brave front, knowing that spring is out there somewhere; and knowing the day will come when I can once again recite those wonderful opening lines from William Shakespeare's Richard III: "Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer..."OK, I've had my fun. Perhaps a little substance would now be in order. Winter does have a certain metaphorical quality to it that I can appreciate and even treasure, just so long as my feet aren't freezing. Like most of us, I'm guessing, I do need my times when I can pull into myself, rediscover and reconnect with my internal resources of the spirit, and prepare for the challenges that living in this world and this time present to us. What I'm saying is that an occasional winter of the soul can truly nurture the spirit; it's just the winter of the body that I could easily do without. My favorite winter quote is really not the one from Shakespeare which I just cited, and which celebrates winter's end, but rather one from Albert Camus that says, "In the midst of winter I discovered that there was within me an invincible spring." That line is part of my personal sacred scripture. Finding a sacred text in the writings of one of the 20th century's leading spokespersons and advocates for atheism may seem a little odd, but there it is nonetheless.
For me a sacred piece of writing is one that awakens my senses to those insights that bring a deeper level of meaning to the life journey itself, which is what these few words from Camus do: "In the midst of winter I discovered that there was within me an invincible spring." If we can somehow get beyond or beneath the often frantic and frenzied quality of this season - if only for a brief time - that is the real purpose of these holidays, whatever the specific celebration they may be tied to. It is to become reacquainted with those eternal and invincible springs that give us life for ourselves and call us to the thirst for life, and for a greater quality of life, in our larger world. This is what can make of these holidays the holy days they are meant to be. This is the underlying theme or principle of the Christian Advent season which is now underway - a time of reflection and preparation for both the personal and global challenges that face all persons of faith, hope, and good-will. This is a human necessity that transcends the particularities of any one faith or faith tradition.
Let me share with you these words by one of my colleagues in the UU ministry, the Rev. Davidson Loehr, that also speaks to this point: "The real origin of these (winter) holidays is from deep within the human spirit. All of our holidays (or holy days) grow out of, and are ways of expressing, our need to feel more convincing connections: To the earth, to our most cherished values, and to one another. We create our holidays like we create our gods, from our longings for reconnections to sources of life and hope. We are like spiders, spinning our connections to the world from something inside ourselves seeking a place to stick to. And whatever our religion is... we know it's always possible that new hope and renewed trust can be born in us, but the truth is that it's hard to believe this sometimes. It's hard for me; it's probably hard for you too."
That indeed is the call and challenge of this season - to reconnect with our most cherished values and look to the possibility of new hope and renewed trust. Like Rev. Loehr says, it's hard to believe in that at times - especially at this time when it's getting pretty cold out there; and I'm not referring to the temperature on the other side of this wall over here, whatever that temperature may be.
My opening winter lament notwithstanding, it is the climate in which we are now called be to bearers of joy, and hope, and peace, and love - to use the four themes of Advent - that I'm finding far more chilling than any dip in temperature or graying of the skies. The bodies of our young men and women continue to be shipped home from Iraq, and ongoing death and destruction continue to be heaped upon that sad country with no foreseeable end to it - that I can see anyway - in sight. I grieve for the families in this country who are losing sons and daughters and loved ones, and I honor the bravery of those uniformed American men and women who risk their lives on a daily basis. What outrages me is the lack of any clear and coherent reason or rationale as to why these lives are being risked and lost, especially since the reasons given for such lives originally being placed in harm's way have been rendered false.
Closer to home, an incident occurred this past week that left me shaking my head in both bewilderment and disgust. The United Church of Christ, one of the more liberal mainline Protestant Christian denominations in our country, created a 30 second promotional piece to be aired on the major networks, as well as some cable networks, designed to show that their congregations are open and welcoming of a variety of folk - including gay and lesbian individuals and couples. Part of their message was that while some religious communities may be less than welcoming to such persons, they are welcomed and affirmed within the communion of the United Church of Christ. The companion message is that there are Christian faith communities in this country that do not consign homosexuality to the realm of sinfulness and depravity - as some of the more right wing Christian communions do.
That's a very commendable message and I salute our UCC sisters and brothers for putting it out there - or trying to put it out there I should say. While several cable networks have run the promo, both CBS and NBC refused to do so. That is their prerogative. But listen to the reason CBS gave the United Church of Christ for their refusal in a letter from one of the network officials (I'm quoting this from the Boston Globe): "Because this commercial touches on the exclusion of gay couples... by other individuals and organizations, and the fact that the Executive Branch (of the current administration) has recently proposed a constitutional amendment to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman, this spot is unacceptable for broadcast."
Just let those words sink in for a moment. Because the current Presidential administration is attempting to constitutionally define marriage as a union strictly between a man and a woman - for this openly stated reason, a supposedly independent media outlet refuses to air a promotional piece by a religious organization that shows gay and lesbian couples in a favorable light. If that doesn't send a chill up your spine, my friends, I don't know what does. You might also want to bear this incident in mind next time you hear a right wing talk radio host ranting on about the "liberal media." Like I said, it's getting cold out there, and I'm not talking now about the temperature in the physical atmosphere.
Incidentally, the United Church of Christ did not approach the ABC network with their ad. ABC has a blanket policy that it does not air religious promotionals. A football promo that features a naked lady jumping into the arms of a NFL football player is fine, but none of this religious stuff! Well, let's not go there.
The silver lining in this whole sorry episode is that it has accorded the United Church of Christ more publicity - largely favorable publicity - than the promo itself ever could have done on it own had it simply been allowed to run. In spite of itself CBS has actually done the United Church of Christ a backhanded kind of favor. But that still does not eliminate the deeply disturbing reality that a major United States television network was so cowed, as shown by its own stated acknowledgement, by the politics of a particular Presidential administration that it refused to air a very brief gay-friendly ad by a mainline religious organization. Such is the climate in which we now find ourselves. As I said, it's getting cold out there.
Recall again just a few of Dave Loehr's words as cited earlier: "We create our holidays like we create our gods, from our own longings for reconnection to sources of life and hope. We are like spiders, spinning our connections to the world from something inside ourselves seeking a place to stick." I would guess that some of you are about as fond of spiders as I am of winter (and I'm not particularly crazy about spiders myself), but I still like this spider metaphor. It speaks to yet another reason for our being the liberal religious community that we are and that we attempt to be.
We come here to spin our connections from something that is within ourselves to the world that is outside of ourselves, as we seek a place to stick to. From our Spark of the Divine, from the Presence of the Holy, from the Life Spirit, from the God or the Goddess - call it what you will - that dwells in each of us to all that is outside of us: This is the connection we seek; and this is the re-connection to those sources of life and hope for which we long, and for which we will continue to strive.
A line from one of our hymns (not the one we're closing with today) says, "This hearth, though all the world grow chill, will keep you warm." I thought of those words one year ago as the few of us who were here put up some of the symbols of peace and hope of this winter season, even as the harsh power of winter was being shown on the other side of our walls and windows. The world can be very harsh with us at times; harsh in very personal ways when an inexplicable loss, or when painful times, are visited upon us - and when we need the love and care and comfort of those with whom we are in community here. It can be very harsh as well when the values and principles and human concerns we hold dear are violated or run roughshod over. We come here to be warmed from such cold harshness.
But this is a warmth that we simply cannot, and must not, hoard for ourselves within the confines of this community, comforting as it may be and is. It is instead a warmth that we must also take from this place in order that we may at least lessen by a few degrees the chill that we know is out there.
This gets me to a final admission: To truly value and appreciate warmth, I guess you have to know cold. Maybe that's why, in spite of myself, I've lived the greatest portion of my life in northern climatic zones - so that the glorious summer will be really glorious. I guess that's as good a rationale as any to get me through another winter, anyway. And yes, it can be very beautiful out there at this time of year; and, yes, I am nurtured, and even uplifted at times, by that snowy beauty. It's just that I prefer to be nurtured by such beauty from a warm place. So I promise that I will at least try to appreciate the beauty of this season - as I've usually managed to in seasons past. And to get me, and the rest of us, in the proper mood for such appreciation, let's sing together our closing hymn, "All Beautiful the March of Days."
Stephen D. Edington
December 5, 2004
Copyright © 2004 by the Unitarian-Universalist Church of Nashua NH. All rights reserved.
