January 19, 2025

This week as the snow fell and the wind whipped between the buildings, I recalled the winter poem, “Pattern” by C.S. Lewis.
 
Some believe the slumber
Of trees is in December
When timber’s naked under sky
And squirrel keeps his chamber.
 
But I believe their fibres
Awake to life and labour
When turbulence comes roaring up
The land in loud October,
 
And plunders, strips, and sunders
And sends the leaves to wander
And undisguises prickly shapes
Beneath the golden splendour.
 
Then form returns. In warmer,
Seductive day, disarming
Its firmer will, the wood grew soft
And put forth dreams to murmur.
 
Into earnest winter
With spirit alert it enters;
The hunter wind and the hound frost
Have quelled the green enchanter.

It might seem like winter is the worst season to enjoy trees. No greenery. No growth. No spender. But as Lewis observes, it is in winter that we see trees in their essence. All adornment is stripped away, and their prickly shapes are laid bare. In winter we see the real tree with its scarred and broken branches stemming from a battered and bent trunk. Winter is when trees are at their strongest, when their roots plunge deepest, and when they grow hardiest. In winter we the resilience that makes all other seasons of life possible. It reminds me that faith too has seasons. And even in the bleak and gray, God is still at work. For even in the barren days of winter, we are loved, more than we know.