Rev. Chip Wright

January 2011

Winter is advancing and the frost is in the air; the trees have dropped their coats and opened their arms to the rain and wind.  This is not what I would normally think of as the way to approach winter.  Yet they stand firm, full face to the cold, resting in the short days and low simmer of life.  Down below the leaf cover are the insects, shuffling to tuck snug, under the cast off summer sequins of the trees.  And yet, still below that, the grubs and worms slow to an almost imperceptible breath. 

They are all taking time to be slow. Perhaps there is something to be learned from that? I look around and see this, and start to ponder the many ways that life finds its livingness. Surely none of us would cast off our clothes and go stand face to the wind, rain, frost and even snow for the winter. Yet trees do this, and in so doing display a most ascetic view.  Erect with arms outstretched to the billowing sky, their fingers entwined with the primordial energy.  How can such a prayer be cast in words or even rolled upon the rippling waves of air?  And yet winter after winter this ritual persists.  It is as awesome and sustaining as my questions that run deep.