One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;
And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter
Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,
Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place
For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.
‘The Snow Man’
Wallace Steven
Over the last ten years or so, the Winter Solstice has offered me a time for particular reflection as I celebrate ‘Blue Christmas’. I celebrate the coming of Christ into worlds that are not full of shiny happy people, but into those places where chronic illness, depression and grief might create shadows into which it feels that no ChristLight might ever shine. It is a celebration for people who, like Wallace Steven, can perceive ‘nothing’, those for whom there is no hope, either ‘out there’ in the bleak landscape or ‘in the same bare place’ within.
I wonder if the Wise-Ones, waiting in the dark for an answer to their question, surrounded and increasingly isolated by the fraught political and theological situation their question has provoked, felt the same kind of hopelessness? I wonder if they feared for their physical safety? I wonder if they doubted the observations and suppositions that made them set out on this journey of a lifetime. Did they come to doubt themselves?
Each Winter Solstice provides an opportunity for me to look back at the past year, to see if I can see where Spirit has been, even within the shadows. What are the treasures of this time? Where can I find the wisdom I need to bring me into this coming year, the year which begins in the fertility of darkness?
A passage from R.S. Thomas’s poem ‘The Minister’ caught my attention during this past year, partly because it seems to sum up some of my own experience; but it also appealed to my imaginings of the Wise-Ones experiences. The Narrator says:
A year passed, once more Orion
Unsheathed his sword from its dark scabbard;
And Sirius followed, loud as a bird
Whistling to eastward his bright notes.
The stars are fixed, but the earth journeys
By strange migrations towards the cold
Frosts of autumn from the spring meadows.
And we who see them, where have we been
Since last their splendour inflamed our mind
With huge questions not to be borne?
(From ‘The Minister’, R.S.Thomas, Collected Poems, 52)
Sometimes the questions feel like they will overcome me. ‘How am I to bear this?’
But I do. I endure another year of pain and fatigue and illness, and with it, I can perceive there were moments of joy within it, words of encouragement, passages of inspiration, times of service and giving, seconds where peace flooded me, snatches of a sense of the indwelling Divine. There is life here. And, as part of this ceremony of looking back, Rumi’s
Drum sound rises on the air, its throb, my heart.
A voice inside the beat says,
“I know you’re tired, but come. This is the way.”
And this is the encouragement I give to myself on this grief-stricken, sombre, vacantly meaning-full day: begin again, dear one. Even just for this moment, begin again. Feel all the heartfelt hurts of your own life and those of the wider world, and feeling them deeply, begin again. Not despite them, but in the midst of them. In the messy middle, begin again.
And this too, is the encouragement the Wise-Ones were given. Their journey was not over. There was an answer that would lead them further into the adventure of mystery. They had one final secret political summit with King Herod to attend, and a royal command to receive. Herod’s advisors had concluded that the Messiah was to be born in Bethlehem, Judea, since the ancient scriptures said that from there ‘shall come a ruler who is to shepherd my people Israel’.
Clearly such a prophecy had not been a threat until the arrival of the Wise-Ones, but now Herod had to strategise and temporise. He chose to be authoritarian, to restrict public knowledge, to coerce the Wise-Ones into a way of acting that would ensure his political power was upheld:
He secretly called for the wise men and learned from them the exact time when the star had appeared.Then he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, ‘Go and search diligently for the child; and when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage.’ (Matthew 2. 6-8 NRSVA)
Matthew does not tell us the reaction of the Wise-Ones to these orders, but rather concentrates on their journey:
When they had heard the king, they set out; and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen at its rising… (Matthew 2.9 NRSVA)
No matter what social, theological and political machinations the Wise-Ones might be embroiled in, they set out – again. And having taken that step of radical trust – then the ChristStar rose again to guide them.
The promise of that ChristStar endures still. Especially at the Winter Solstice, especially at Blue Christmas. I am not called to journey into the dark of the longest night alone.
As I watch the winter Orion emerge, as I listen to the Blackbird’s carol at winter dusk, I remember that my journey is not yet done. All I am called to do in this moment is to begin again with that first step of this next year’s journey, to make that first tremulous step with trust in the One I cannot see and may not be able to hear – and yet …
Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise
Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these sunken eyes and learn to see
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to be free
Blackbird, fly
Blackbird, fly
Into the light of the dark black night
Blackbird, fly
Blackbird, fly
Into the light of the dark black night
Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise
You were only waiting for this moment to arise
You were only waiting for this moment to arise
‘Blackbird’
Songwriters: Paul McCartney / John Lennon
Blackbird lyrics © Sony/atv Tunes Llc
Listen here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Man4Xw8Xypo
falling into the light of the dark black night
(Canon R10. f6.3. 1/100. ISO 100)
image into ikon 