Friday, November 8, 2013

In Celebration of Seasons

So, confession: I started to write this post in my head a little while ago, but am just now getting it down*. It was earlier in October on an unusually cold day; I was on a run that I was particularly underdressed for and I was freezing. No matter how much I cranked Macklemore in my earphones, I hated that I was running. It.was.awful. In the moment, the post seemed so fitting, so powerful, so encouraging, that I was ready to literally run straight to my computer to write it down. But then, like the midwestern weather tends to do, it got warm again and I forgot that the seasons were changing, that winter was coming. I was even able to run in shorts for a bit. Not to make excuses, but the post seemed somewhat superfluous.

But now that we are in our second week of November, and autumn is definitely on it's way out, the post has come back into my head. The last weeks of October have been some of the most difficult weeks for me in recent memory, but I feel they have only added depth and clarity to my processing. Grief mingled among pain, joy among sorrow. Life is so beautifully complex sometimes, but it can also be so ugly. 


I spent the past weekend visiting my aunt on my dad's side who was dying of cancer. The grief sat so heavily in my throat I found I couldn't talk. It was like the weight was too heavy for my voice to get through. She was in a hospice facility, a heart breaking building in itself, and I spent most of the weekend thinking about life, death, justice, or the lack of it, and grief. I found a piano there, praise be to God; I spent most of the two days expressing my inarticulable feelings softly on those keys, knowing all too well that I was playing for those who were waiting to die. 

We are at that point in the changing of seasons where death is beginning to show. The leaves are falling, the color is fading, and barrenness is on its way in. Isn't that the paradox of fall, though? No season brings me so much joy and so much anxiety at the same time. I love the fall colors almost most more than I love chocolate. Almost. And yet, I know with each passing day filled with those mustard yellows, fire reds, and burnt oranges, winter is coming. I remember lamenting this with my roommate: this would all be that much more wonderful and beautiful if such ugliness and struggle wasn't on its way.  

The more I thought about it, though, the more I realized this wasn't necessarily true. Yes, winter is coming. And that sucks. If I can be so blunt. But, it always comes. And, similarly, spring always comes after**. In our humanity, we have an incredibly uncanny ability to forget that we can make it through the months of bitter cold. We forget that year after year we layer up, we push through, we cry a few angry tears and then, eventually, we come to the realization that life is much sweeter on the other side of winter. We realize that spring without winter is not the same. That making it through those six agonizing months of gray provides a certain perspective of joy, strength, and gratefulness.  Growing up in the south, with much less season change than the midwest, I didn't realize this until coming to college. During my first 'real' spring, right after my first 'real' winter, I remember going on and on about how green the grass was. It was a bit obnoxious in hindsight, but I couldn't get over how beautiful everything seemed. I had seen nothing but gray for so long that the colors popped with this renewed and rejuvenating energy, so contagious it was hard to not to smile. Not to hope.

Often, in the winter, all we can do is show up. And even that is not easy sometimes. I think running during these particular months is an amazing and organic metaphor for this; there is nothing quite like it, really. You start off oh so hopeful because, goodness gracious, you have managed to convince yourself that running outside in single digit degrees is a good idea. But. Well. It's cold. You begin to lose feelings in your extremities. Your lungs hurt so bad there must be icicles forming in your alveoli***. Your start wondering the signals for frostbite because your pretty sure you have it on your nose. Your begin to question your own sanity after flicking off the drivers who won't let you cross the street. Why the heck did you even decide to go outside today?   

And then. You get to the end of your run and for everything that went wrong, that hurt, or that stung, there is a matching feeling of triumph, victory, and fulfillment. And these feelings are stronger, simply because it was so hard to begin with. No matter if you ran two miles or twenty, getting out and running in negative degree feels all the same when you finish. Because, simply, you showed up. You didn't let the winter keep you inside. And that in itself shows a certain amount of fortitude. It brings a certain amount of accomplishment. 

I am still pretty young. I still have much to learn. I make many mistakes daily; ask those who are close to me and they will be happy to enlighten you. But as I spend more time crossing through seasons and, naturally and consequently, experiencing my own fair share of winters, I am starting to realize that much of life, really, is just showing up. There is something so beautifully grace-filled in that.  That so much of our sanctification, so much of our redemption, so much of our survival and thriving in a world of such longing, relies on us just being open and present to the work God is doing in our lives.   

With my aunt's passing on Wednesday, I am preparing to cross over into literal and figurative seasons of winter. And, I am realizing, my perspective on this upcoming time needs to change. Perhaps, instead of dreading the time I must spend walking down certain paths, I should try to remember that I have made it through similar seasons before. I just need to keep showing up, open, and ready. The Lord has been faithful. He will be again.
Even if I can only run two miles some days. Even when it seems like winter never ending and it snows at the end of April. 

Eventually there will be a world with no winters. I like to think heaven will be a world of eternal autumn, but that's my personal opinion. Until that time, though, we are here knowing we are meant for somewhere else. We need to just keep layering and  showing up. Because at the end of the winters, and there will be an end, our joy for Spring will be deeper, stronger, and a beautiful testament of a redemptive life in the Lord.



* Because, that's how I do.
** Although, it never seems to come on time; such a goober Spring is.
*** High school Human Anatomy class, for the win.