Midwinter

Rali Weaver

First Church and Parish in Dehdma

December 21, 2009

Despite all the snow we have seen this weekend and the increasingly cold weather according to our calendars it was only at 7:04 this morning that winter actually began. So Ttoday marks the shortest day and the longest night of the year.

Depending on how you look at it this is either the deepest darkest day or the marker from which the light returns.

Is it any wonder that at this interesting season, when the light has decreased and the world grown quiet and peaceful that so many holidays are celebrated. ? Sundown tonight marks the beginning of Hanukah and just three days from today we will be back here celebrating Christmas Eve.

With all the frenzy that surrounds us in out our preparations at this time of year we are often at the very least inconvenienced by the short days and the snow and Ice and at the very most distracted by it.

In our holidays we are trying to focus on the Light that is why I have all those candles in the windows at the Parsonage. Christmas and Hanukkah remind us of the light in the darkness. Yet in some ways this takes our attention away from the season we are actually now in.

When When it comes to how we can appreciate this winter season it is truly our perspective that mattersand how much we pay attention that matters.

Our poem this morning from Billy Collins points points to this truth.

Can’t you just see it, the Buddha, who is all about being in the present, becoming one with the snow. , Or or was he one with the shovel?

I can’t really tell because I am usually more full of the the same commentary of Billy Collins than I am the focus of the Buddha. I am much more likely to search for the escape from the now, especially when it comes to snow shoveling.

It is not that I mind shoveling but I am more likely to focus my thoughts on what has been or what will come to pass than to fully engage in what I am doing. Mostly because I am cold Being ADHD that’s my nature, Imy mind seems to want to be distracted from the cold and yet I believe that winter demands of us something different from us- something more akin to sitting than to action.

Our bodies cry out for this slowing, this hibernation, this hunkering down. And if we do not pay attention external forces, such as sickness snow, and snowsickness, can slow us down. Winter means business.

It is a time of freezing. The word solstice itself derives its meaning from the Latin sol meaning (sun) and sistere (to stand still). Even the sun is in some ways sitting still and meditating today.

Last summer when I was striving to be at one with the earth up in the Adirondack Mountains, I woke each morning and went outside and stuck my feet in the earth and turned my closed eyes toward the sun soaking in its warmth and saying the Gayatri (a sacred Hindu prayer):

“You who are the source of all power, whose rays illuminate the whole world, illuminate also my heart, so it too can do your work”.

As the seasons have changed I have continued to address the sun in this fashion as I first go outside each morning. This prayer has made me feel more whole and clearer of purpose.

The only problem has been that as the weather has grown colder and the skies increasingly more gray -- the sun seems farther and farther away- and connecting to the sun in the darkness feels much more difficult.

This started me wondering what it might be like to connect my spirit to the darkness.

While there are some prayers to the moon and rituals around its waxing and waning many religions talk of the darkness as something to turn away from and to fear.

I wonder how we might see the world differently if we embraced the darkness of the winter as much as we do the light of the summer.

What if we saw god in both places, the dark and the light. How might this change our perspective?

What benefit might there be to turning our hearts and minds toward the darkness instead of avoiding its shadows?

I love the meditation written by my friend and mentor The Rev. John Marsh who points us to recognize there are already many dark things which we value.

Chocolate and sleep and newsprint- there are all types of dark things we already love. What if we were to revere the dark corners of the room, the haunting feelings of dark times, the shadows of our past and to see god there too?

Pantheistic thought is based in the understanding that God is not just in the light but God is All and All is God.

If you have never heard of Pantheism that is probably because it was only coined in 1705 by an little known Irish writer named John Toland in his book, Socinianism Truly Stated: by a pantheist. It is ofen used now to refer to many pagan and eath based religious thought but also refers to the ideals of our Unitarian roots.

Socianism was based on the work of Faustus Socinus an early Unitarian who established the Unitarian (Socinian) church in Poland. He was born in 1539 into a prominent family in Siena, Faustis Socinus inherited his Uncles mind and writings and questioned the Trinitarian understanding of the divine. You may remember hearing that the Inquisition began to make Italy unsafe for those who the Roman Catholic Church considered Heritics, and his uncle Laelius went into exile. When Laelius died, young Faustus inherited his uncle's heretical writings, then he to went into exile in 1574.

He ended up in Transylvania, where the first known Unitarian King, John Sigismund, reigned from 1540 to 1571. Socinus finally ended up in Poland, where he began the Unitarian Church until his death 1604.

Pantheistic, Socianist and Unitarian ideals, that see God in All and All in God have been considered heretical by the church as recently as the founding date of our Parish.

Is it no wonder than that it might feel somewhat strange to see God in dark places?

And yet isn’t that the only way through them?

If we can embrace all that is our life even the dark spaces, even the mud and even the snow, even winter- If we can engage in the shoveling as the Buddha did how much richer might our lives become.

For me the sun prayer brings fire and warmth to my soul that it needs but as I strive to meditate on the dark and the cold and the silence I find a peace that passes all understanding.

In all my searching for a prayer to the darkness a friend finally offered me this reading from John O’Donohue- that during the dark days of winter I have begun to meditate upon. I have adapted it to read in the first person for use in my daily meditations and I offer it to you this morning in the hope that it offers some insight to your own heart at this Winter Solstice.

Light cannot see inside things.

That is what the dark is for:

Minding the interior,

nurturing the draw of growth through places

where death in its own way turns into life.

In the glare of neon times, let (my) eyes not be worn out

by surfaces that shine with hunger made attractive.

May (my) thoughts be true light,

finding their way into words

which have the weight of shadow to hold the layers of truth.

And when (I) look into the heart,

may (my) eyes have the kindness

and reverence of candlelight.

And when (I am) confined inside the dark house of suffering,

may the moonlight find a window.

Darkness and snow and winter are gifts to us.

Let us sit with them offering our presence of mind, our openness of heart and our gratitude for all the spiritual nourishment they provide.