Winter Fullness
By Brother Christopher
“Ah, world, what lessons you prepare for us
even in the leafless winter...”
–Mary Oliver, Starlings in Winter
I woke this morning to the realization that our world was covered with five inches of fresh, light snow. The snowplow man at 4 am first alerted me to that fact, and when I peered out the doorway while making my coffee I was treated to the most elegant of winter scenes. Light snow covered the various tree branches, and a shimmering glow was set against the surrounding darkness. The snow blanketed everything, and I could literally hear the silence a bit later when I stepped outside to do some shoveling.
Such mornings are an appropriate prelude to Christmas, that great feast that celebrates the incarnation of God in the flesh in the humblest of circumstances. We cannot sufficiently grasp this mystery unless we first empty ourselves of the familiarity of so many Christmas celebrations of the past. As the world is made new with each snowfall, so our own penetration into the mystery of what Christmas represents deepens and is made new, as well. The Spirit invites us to a deeper silence that is able to stand before the mystery and behold what God is doing as if for the first time. How could we not feel renewed? Christ is coming to birth once again, and we get to behold it.
This leads me to realize that our contemplation of the mystery of the incarnation has the possibility of changing us profoundly, of helping us to live ever more intimately with its mystery in the very ordinariness of everyday life. The more we behold mystery’s full scope, the more we discover that life itself in all its complexity witnesses to this reality, and our eyes and hearts can adjust to its inspiring vision. I believe this is part of what the Russian theologian Sergius Bulgakov was intuiting when he wrote so passionately of Holy Wisdom, the evidence of God’s presence and work that he saw so expansively in the material world of flesh and spirit.
For so many, in a world with its vast share of misery and pain, such speculations can seem like romantic sentimentality. But as God does not create the pain and suffering, it makes all the difference that God is with us in the midst of it, if only we allow ourselves to be conscious of that and receive it. Part of why God chose to be born as a vulnerable infant was to understand what it feels like to be a complex human being. God wished to understand his creature from the inside out, and this is the true source of the Divine compassion. God knows what we go through, what it means to be human. It seems to me that this is why the essential contemplative work of prayer is so vital in our day: it provides living access to this insight, and it fosters hope.
In the stillness of winter we can easily miss what is transpiring within the bare branches of our hearts. They are alive with mystery. We may feel empty and barren, but it is helpful to be reminded of the example of Mary, who when told of her pregnancy by the angel Gabriel responded, “But how can this be, since I have no relations with man?...How can I be anything but empty?” Yet, despite the fact that she was a virgin, Christ took flesh in her womb, gestated for nine months, and then was born into a world of beauty and contradictions. So, too, with us: Christ continues to be born out of the faithful and steadfast practice of the Church, out of its womb of prayer. May we always be alive to that mystery.
