A Season of Good
#Snow
“Every year I write a Christmas letter of sorts. This year it was difficult to find the right words. I was so uncertain about exactly what it was I felt. Sadness? Disappointment? Grief? But eventually, the words did come and at the most unexpected time. But I won't question that. So, here are some thoughts as we move into this special time of the year.”
A Season of Good
“There’s no telling how snowflakes simply tumble out of blank sky. And tomorrows fall through tomorrows the same way, a different tomorrow for us each.
Most mornings now, I walk out among them without wondering which might be mine. ”
I spent the better part of a day stringing colored lights on junipers and white on piñon. Some would question the timing. It was only November, after all. But I felt a strong need to cut through all the darkness of this year.
“Light and dark. Good and evil. These are simple concepts at the very heart of the human experience. And yet, we struggle, as if they were ever shifting sands changing over time. They are not.”
A wind sweeps a dust cloud down the road, as I kneel to lay out the luminarias. In the north here, we call them farolitos — a small lantern, symbolically lighting the way for the Holy Family on Christmas Eve. This year that symbolism feels more like a prayer. And for a second, I gaze up and think of snow and easier times, although, there isn’t a cloud in the sky. It’s dry. Drought dry. And another dust cloud rises.
“In a dream, I paint canvas after canvas with angelic forms. Cherubim. Seraphim. But as I look back, all the paint runs off onto the floor. Before long I am awash in a sea of paint and indecision. Do I dare paint them again? I know this is a question of faith. But I wake to yet another reality.”
With the lights lit, I walk out into the night to check my handiwork. The lights on the ground briefly mirror the desert night’s sky, with its endless stars. Light touching light, touching soul. It’s cold, but my heart warms. We are often aware of transcendence, even when we can’t name it.
It is this unknowable, unnameable wildness at the center of it all, that brings hope and confirms that the miraculous is possible. Dark turning into light, one season turning into the next — the cyclical nature of everything and the assurance that we are a part of it, gives credence to the promise of this season year after year. Simply put, there is good still, and we are a part of it.
Stories define us, it’s true. And they matter, though they always leave so much out.
I like it that way, keep telling them to desert, and desert keeps filling in whatever it is we’re missing.
— David Hinton, from Desert Poems
An Afterthought: A few days later, after hanging the lights, as if in answer to a collective prayer, it did indeed snow. Not a lot, but a restorative gesture, none the less. Change is always in the offing.
A most joyous Christmas to you all!
PatrickSpirit 🖤
Christmas 2020