In the Dark of the Year

I just went down to get an early morning cup of coffee, and this was the view that greeted me from the kitchen window. No matter what kind of rotten, sad, grumpy or grinchy side of the bed I might wake up on, the God of wonder can yank me to the other side in a heartbeat.

A New Year to Celebrate

New Year's Eve. That traditional time to remember, to check out the highlights, laugh over the spilled-milk goofs, cherish the tender moments. And then we begin celebrating the coming new year. Frankly, I think we use it mostly as an excuse to have a good time. Other than the dangers inherent in drunk driving, I'm all for celebrating for celebrating's sake. We need it.

There's not a lot to cheer about. A doubtful, dangerous, destructive war waged under the most spurious of circumstances. 40,000 babies dying every day from hunger and its deadly companion ailments. A consumer-based "civilization" that threatens to plow through the last of the Earth's precious resources with hardly a nod to its own culpability. No wonder we tend to grab for the nearest alcoholic beverage before we can make merry. How else could we possibly face the truth of the mess we've managed to make in our own nest?

Given that gloomy reality, you might wonder why I think celebrating is a good idea. I rejoice that, as long as we're still hanging around as a species, there's hope. Hope that we might look backward some New Year's Eve with a sober, unflinching eye and decide to make some real changes in the months ahead. To live as if the Earth mattered, as if we aren't disconnected from those starving children, the poisoned water, the filthy air. What if we decided to figure out what we truly need, and buy only those items next year? What if we committed to producing half the trash we did last year, personally? What if we all gave Christmas gifts of a heifer, or a tree, or a year's worth of breakfast for an AIDS orphan? What if we awakened to the fact that food doesn't have to be locked up?

Sounds radical, I know. It will take radical to bail us out at this late date. But radical doesn't mean impossible, and it's in that wee little difference that my hope lies. So grab a noise-maker, strap on a silly hat and have some fun, knowing that next year could make all the difference in the world.

In the bleak mid-winter

For those of you who don't know the hymn "In the bleak mid-winter", it's worth researching. It's a haunting, lovely Christmas carol, vying for my favorate rating with "And every stone shall cry".

Ah, Christmastide.

I've morphed into something of a Scrooge over the past fifteen years or so when it comes to the celebration of Jesus' birth. Here in the convent our traditional practices ran along the lines of let's-see-how-much-we-can-possibly-cram-into-two-days. I think we're now easing up on that, but the hectic preparations, the long hours and scant rest of Christmas have taken their toll. I've developed a Grinchy heart.

It doesn't help much that the daylight hours have shrunk to about nine. Brewster is as close to the Arctic Circle as I can bear. Our lovely December snow has been rained down into a few dirty patches of ice. Everything is either gray or brown. There's mud everywhere. Waking the ducks up in the morning now takes nearly forty-five minutes. Drag the hoses from the pantry to the back porch. Fill the pools. Remove yesterday's duck leavings from the porch. Uncover the hay and schlepp it around to all three duck-house areas to provide a safer, cleaner roost for the coming night. Feed them. Crawl into the Triplets' house to reconnect the light they managed to pull down again. Empty the outside hose and drag the inside one back to the pantry. I usually love this work, but in these darkened days it is naked drudgery.

The only fun part is looking for an egg or two. Another duck is laying, probably Petra, and searching the tell-tale "nesting holes" in the hay brings back a touch of my childhood Christmas wonder. Will there be a surprise this morning?

I know this is the heart of the Christmas story — finding a gift in the hay of the animal house. And against all reason and hope, there it is. A tiny spark of life. A promise. A possibility.

I have to remind myself several times a day that winter is not only the season of my discontent, it is also the Earth's time for transformation, when everything appears to be hopeless but big changes are afoot. Those precious few reminders are all we get to keep us plodding along through the mud. That and a huge amount of trust in the wisdom of the Universe.

Here's to gifts and trust and surviving the bleak mid-winter.