The New Year arrives devoid of December’s color, clutter, and chaos. The holidays are over. Life is quieter. Muted. Barren. What is to come?

That split second between December 31 and January 1 was merely a change in year, marked only by a new number. And yet, what is to come—this wintertime of hibernation— is a uniquely beautiful privilege. A sabbatical.

Fields lay dormant. Trees stripped naked, their stark arthritic branches reaching to a sky streaked with silver, white, and strips of gray. A world awash in neutrals. Raindrops, like transparent tears, trickle down the window pane. And as a frozen chill settles in, the opaque quiet of snow sifts from the clouds above, muffling sound. Tawny wheat hugs the earth, slumbering through the season.

This is the pregnant pause. A day of rest. The Sunday for your soul. An interlude between Advent and Resurrection.

Wait. Listen. Cherish the quiet. Reserve time, space, and energy to recharge. Delay making New Year’s Resolutions which are hasty and premature without a time of reflection. Instead, pause to rest and reset. Rest and Reset are so close in spelling and related in spirit.

Pull over the blanket of winter and savor the opportunity to renew friendships over a cup of tea. Fuel your heart by the warmth of the fire. A hiatus from holidays, means hours to hunker down with the hardback you’ve hungered to read.

Relish a calendar with few holidays, an occasion to connect the love celebrated in Advent to Valentines Day.

Appreciate the colorless. Paperwhites and pussy willows on the mantel. The monochromatic elegance of black, white, and grey helps us appreciate the transformation to come.

Spring will one day return rich with responsibility and reward, hope and harvest. Soon you’ll plant something new in the ground. But for now, what about your heart and soul? What will you plant for the seasons to come?

Observe and be conscious of the beauty of the borders before you. The separation of day and night, light and darkness, summer and winter, spring and fall. Then you can be thankful for it all.

For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come (Solomon 2).

In this muted midwinter intermezzo, till the soil of your soul and prepare a rich harvest for seasons—and songs to come.

C 2020 Ann Marie Stewart
All rights reserved