The Best Season of Your Life

Today is the winter solstice, which brings us the longest night of the year and the beginning of the winter season. Many people view winter as an inconvenient stepping stone to spring, including the poet Percy Bysshe Shelly, who asked, “If winter comes, can spring be far behind?” In their view, the elimination of winter would improve our lives. However, it is important to attend to the wisdom of the Taoist tradition, which holds that the world in all its mystery and difficulty cannot be improved upon, only experienced. Consider the following meditation by Japanese monk Wumen Huikai:

Ten thousand flowers in spring,

the moon in autumn,

a cool breeze in summer,

snow in winter. 

If your mind isn’t clouded by unnecessary things, this is the best season of your life.

Wishing it were spring is certainly one of the unnecessary things that keeps winter from being the best season of our lives. God gives us winter for a reason, as noted by Christine Valters Paintner: “The God of winter invites me into a healing rhythm of rest and renewal, of deep listening in the midst of stillness, of trusting the seeds sprouting deep within that have been planted.”

After the winter solstice, we in the Northern hemisphere will start having a bit more light at the end of each day, and thus it is a particularly appropriate time to celebrate the birth of Christ, the Light of the World. However, after the Christmas festivities have come to an end, I look forward to enjoying God’s gift of this season of rest and renewal, of deep listening in the midst of winter stillness.