Jesuit Journeys
winter 2005

Living as a Jesuit in the territorial confines of the Wisconsin Province is to experience lengthy periods of cold and darkness – unless one cares for an aging parent in San Diego or pursues doctoral studies at Florida State. Years ago I realized I had better make peace with winter not only by cozying up to a warm fire with a good book for five months, but also by getting outdoors. So began my career as a cross-country skier.

Now, in the midst of my 64th winter, I realize that a deeper peace with winter comes from acknowledging that this remarkable God of ours actually created in His goodness both light and darkness, both hot and cold, both activity and rest, both life and death, and both summer and winter.

The winter of God’s contentment! But how to live in that contentment? Simply welcome the cold and let the darkness embrace us. So much easier said than done! Cold, like standing before a firing squad, has the immediate ability to focus one’s attention. A good sub-zero cold, when inhaled, gets to one’s core and raises existential questions quicker than a half-hour of centering prayer.

I do better with the darkness than with the cold. I am Irish and come from generations of folk naturally SAD (Seasonal Affected Disorder), so winter simply justifies an inherited depression and lethargy. Seriously, darkness gets a bad rap and that is so unfortunate. As John Staudenmaier, SJ likes to say, with electric lights we lost the “common coming of the night” and that is a huge loss. Yes, we can go on running SUV assembly lines past sunset, but we have lost the right-brain activities of the darkness: the story telling and singing around the fire, the star-gazing, the contemplative prayer, and the gentle love-making.

I look over at my blooming Christmas cactus and I realize it is only doing so well because I left it cool, dry, and dark from September until Advent. Edwina Gately put it succinctly: “The plant grows not because of our efforts but because we leave space in our darkness for the seed to take root.” That explains most genuinely creative acts.

Winter invites us to stay faithful to our grieving as well. The leaves of the red oak do not fall until the third week of January, usually at the emergence of new buds. Winter reminds us that one generation is always giving way to the next and asks us if we are gracefully doing that, whether we are departing or emerging.

Winter also invites us to rest as so many other wise mammals are doing. Black bears are giving birth while still hibernating – and we think that we have evolved! Mozart said that any musician can play the notes but only a true artist can play the rests. Are we artists of our humanity, playing the rests in a culture so addicted to activity? It is easy to be busy; for most of us it is difficult to be at rest – even when we want to be. Yet the rest is so important in life – as well as in music.

I could have slanted this article toward the spring in winter – the spring song of the cardinal in mid-January, the honey bees cleansing themselves in February – but I am glad that I chose to write of the winter in winter. Before I finish, however, I would like to ask if anyone knows of a parish in Naples or Palm Springs that could use an associate pastor from late January to Easter.

Fr. Dick Rice, SJ is a retreat director at the Jesuit Oshkosh Retreat House. For additional information about Fr. John Staudenmaier, SJ, go to www.jesuitswisprov.org/jesuit_journeys/ 1999Summer/holydark.html

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