Winter

Winter.  A season of the year.  Winter is in the familiar months of Dec-March (conclusively) but that is only in the northern hemisphere. If you travel far enough south (S.America, S.Africa, Australia etc), winter is in the June-Sept framework. Winter – a cooler time.  Winter – a time with shorter days and longer nights. But is winter strictly a physical phenomenon?

 

Winter can have a spiritual side.  It can be a time with the cooler weather to gather the family around a fireplace, a wood stove (even a heater) for a renewal of the much needed Family Altar. Let one or all read. Let one or all pray around.  Let the conversation be open to any family subject (including sex, finances, school schedules, future vacations).  Winter is for the family.

 

Winter’s spiritual side can/should include additional, personal reading of the Bible.  That cup of cocoa, coffee, tea, etc. can be consumed at the same time that Moses, or Matthew, Paul or Peter talk with you out of their hearts.

 

Or let the longer nights induce you to retire earlier and then, as the Lord awakens you, to rise and do so night praying.  Night praying (no pressing schedule, no phone or other electronic device) offers a quiet almost impossible to duplicate any other time of the day.

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Snow

Winter is almost synonymous

With a four letter word: Snow.  

It seems that the first cannot be,

Without the other to blow, and blow.

 

Sometimes it comes down

As downy as pillow fluff,

Nearly as large as pennies and dimes

And, OH! such beautiful “stuff.”

 

When it lights on your sleeve,

Or your tall hat or coat,

Its structure marvelous and crystalline,

But, ah, Don’t you stroke,

 

For it will melt soon enough,

From its perfect individual shape,

And another that is now falling

It place, at your attention, will take.

 

Then there is the fine snow,

As fine as ground flour.

Which so neatly covers the ground

In a short time; maybe an hour.

 

Of course, there are deep snows,

And long snows and short.

And snows in valleys and hills,

And on mountainous resorts.

 

But in whatever form or manner it comes,

Each has its purpose to bring.

So use it, enjoy it, and make snow men;

Or go out in the evening a carol to sing.        – eab, ’64 NOV

Written while studying for my BA in Literature, Cincinnati, Ohio

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