While others love the summer sun and some enjoy the new life of spring, with the proponents for the golden leaves of Autumn, I have to stake my claim in saying my favourite season of the cycle is Winter.
One of the things I love about the season is how it’s a season of death, sleep and restoration. Before you get all worried that I love death, what I like is that it signifies the end of things. Some things need to end. In fact some things need to end by the end of the day. If I have a ratty mood, that needs to be dead before I go to sleep. Yet some things take longer to die, because their lifespan is necessarily longer – yet however long it is – whether its a fashion trend, a reading craze, a television phenomenon or a social campaigning issue there has got to be a time when it comes to its close.
Sure no one loves dying (well, no one I know, anyway), but we all accept that it is inevitable and in some cases it is indeed a good thing. (A good thing to see someone in so much suffering, finally released from it by its natural cessation.) We are not crying when bad seasons come to their end or trying times reach their conclusion. Things die and winter is a season that reminds us that things must die.
As well as death, though, winter reminds me that it’s a time to hibernate. We cannot expose and stretch ourselves out to be used without some time to stop and recover. Stop and be refreshed. Withdraw from the spotlight so as to regain strength and refocus on what’s the goal and purpose of life. In as much as it appears on the surface that little is going on, deep down the necessary restorative functions are taking place quietly and methodically healing, soothing, consoling, strengthening and motivating all in preparation for the launch once more in the Spring.
To hibernate is a grand thing that people often overlook. People run away from hibernating because it suggests inactivity. Those who love them some activity and action-packed living miss the beat in hibernation. And when they miss the beat, they subsequently get out of rhythm with the nature of change which action is meant to live out.
Wisdom suggests there is much benefit in sleep. There is much benefit in rest. There is much benefit in actively not being active so that those positive values of restoration can take place bringing with it a renewed vigour to encounter the challenges life has to offer.
That cannot take place in the Spring or Summer. Autumn is hardly a time for that either as you begin slowing the gears to prepare for this season. The best time for all this good stuff remains in the Winter – and that is why I love the season so much. In my own personal life, there is so much to prepare for. there is so much to reflect on, give thanks for and yet there’s also some things I must let go of and let die. Some things need to rest. Some things need to be laid down. It is not the end, it is merely the necessary pause in my life’s symphony before it comes back in with the crescendo of spring.
I know I won’t rest always, but I enjoy this time to do so however I can and look forward to the work that takes place in this time before what it about to emerge.
For His Name’s Sake
Shalom
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