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Inspiration from a winter garden
Winter is the time of repose, of nature’s restoration and renewal. This season actually strengthens the parts of creation that experience long hours of darkness. It allows for a quiet resting of both vegetation and creatures. What is quite amazing is that trees are already budding in wintertime, holding a secret of hope. If you look closely at these terminal buds on branches, you can see their tight protection of life. These buds will quickly leaf or flower with warming sun and spring rain. Words by Joyce Rupp.
Joyce Rupp writes “I name the Holy One as our Strengthening Darkness, a source of restoration, renewal and repose for us when we are in need of these gifts.”
A Prayer in Winter by Joyce Rupp
Each morning when we awaken with light still hiding in the sleeve of winter, may we receive what is needed to meet the challenging requirements of the day.
O Strengthening Darkness, we are the terminal buds
waiting in repose, to be energized in our vigilant dormancy.
Like terminal buds drawing strength from the roots of a wintered tree, we greet the darkest days of the year with hope, trusting that the potency of the Holy One’s love will reinforce this essence of our being.
O Strengthening Darkness, we are the terminal buds
waiting in repose, to be energized in our vigilant dormancy.
When evening arrives each wintered day and our list of “to do” is not fully accomplished, let us enter the darkness and discover gratitude for the positive features that were experienced.
O Strengthening Darkness, we are the terminal buds
waiting in repose, to be energized in our vigilant dormancy.
Each day let us remember that winter darkness invites us to breathe in stillness, to rest in the arms of silence, where what is of greatest value can be deepened and enhanced in us.
O Strengthening Darkness, we are the terminal buds waiting in repose, to be energized in our vigilant dormancy.
No matter how expansive the world’s suffering, we can unite with that pain through our empathy, the gift of compassion that our experience of darkness empowers in us.
O Strengthening Darkness, we are the terminal buds
waiting in repose, to be energized in our vigilant dormancy.
Amen
O Strengthening Darkness, we are the terminal buds on the tree of life. Waiting, trusting, remaining hopeful—may these valued movements of the heart increase in us. Light-filled days will come again into our lives. As the radiant warmth of springtime unfurls the hidden green in buds whose arms wrapped tightly around themselves, so will surprises of future light awaken and unfurl what has seemed forever buried in our winter’s repose.
© Joyce Rupp A Winter Prayer: Strengthening Darkness
Two Poems for this season
The first poem is taken from The Second Pause – My Soul Waits – one of three meditations for the beginning of the year – please visit resources and take some time to Ponder and go deeper with the Lord.
To a semi-circle: seeking wisdom
Alone among the shapes I meet,
you rest, content and incomplete;
no rounded symmetry I see,
nor perfect immortality.
Your half-formed body, foetal soul
seems broken, wounded, far from whole.
Your pair of angles doesn’t quite
square the circle, set things right.
Yet, should I look beyond such flaws,
open up my blinkered doors,
perhaps I’d see through different eyes:
your gentle promise, silver-bright
shining half-moon in the night.
(Peter Sidebotham)
Unto the upright there arises light in the darkness:
he is gracious and full of compassion, and righteous.
Psalm 112.4
The Sacrament of Waiting – by Macrina Weiderkehr
Slowly
She celebrated the sacrament of letting go.
First she surrendered her green,
Then the orange, yellow, and red
Finally she let go of her brown.
Shedding her last leaf
She stood empty and silent, stripped bare.
Leaning against the winter sky
She began her vigil of trust.
Shedding her last leaf
She watched its journey to the ground.
She stood in silence
Wearing the colour of emptiness,
Her branches wondering;
How do you give shade with so much gone?
And then,
The sacrament of waiting began.
The sunrise and sunset watched with tenderness.
Clothing her with silhouettes
They kept her hope alive.
They helped her understand that
Her vulnerability,
Her dependence and need,
Her emptiness,
Her readiness to receive
Were giving her a new kind of beauty.
Every morning and every evening they stood in silence
And celebrated together
The sacrament of waiting.