In the Bleak Mid Winter

In the bleak mid-winter
   Frosty wind made moan
Earth stood hard as iron,
  Water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow,
  Snow on snow,
In the bleak mid-winter
  Long ago.

With verses from Christina Rossetti’s breathtaking Christmas poem-turned-carol lingering in my head, there’s a thought that worms its way into my consciousness after the past week’s bout of flu and world events: are we headed back toward the bleak midwinters before Christ was there to interrupt them?

Liturgically we have the Presentation of the Lord coming up, so our festive decorations are still defying the monotony of winter, and we certainly had the glory of the Lord break upon us through the December gloom. But those bookends seem somehow distant.

Even with the tree crispy, I hesitate to take away its festive jewels. Once it’s had its last hurrah on the Candlemas bonfire, we really will be surrounded here in the snowy North with days that don’t brighten quickly enough and an early Lent coming fast. 

And this particular January, much more of the continent than normal seems buried under the ice, whether that is metaphorical or physical: physical ice for those without power or plumbing after the recent arctic storm, metaphorical ice for those stuck under politics gone awry. 

Days and hours can seem to melt into each other right now, trying to fend off the next news cycle or robotically keeping the pipes from freezing. But is the glory of the Lord coming to a close? The next stanzas of Rossetti’s poem offer a way out.

Our God, heaven cannot hold Him
  Nor earth sustain,
Heaven and earth shall flee away
  When He comes to reign:
In the bleak mid-winter
  A stable-place sufficed
The Lord God Almighty —
  Jesus Christ.

Enough for Him, whom cherubim
  Worship night and day,
A breastful of milk
  And a mangerful of hay;
Enough for Him, whom Angels
  Fall down before,
The ox and ass and camel
  Which adore.

Angels and Archangels
  May have gathered there,
Cherubim and seraphim
  Thronged the air;
But only His Mother
  In her maiden bliss
Worshipped the Beloved
  With a kiss.

We will never be able to effectively end the vicious spirals of news that use agendas to tear humanity apart even as individuals and groups waver between insanity and stability. We won’t be able to stop the cyclical dramas of human history where fickle mankind often blindly and sometimes willfully chooses Sisyphean patterns leading to his own demise. 

But God can. And all He asked for the first time He broke into the gloom was a cave, some milk, a scratchy bed, and a kiss from a Mother who had a tender heart for Him. With them, He interrupted the cycle of pagan ages with a cross that guarantees resurrection at the end of every individual’s way if he seeks union with God. Those items—on the most mundane level—I can manage. 

The cold front I can thaw is the one in my living room. 

Many of us love to decorate our homes in ways that promote beauty and peace. Sometimes it is harder to do that continuously in spirit or in the commonplace day-to-day. Yet each baby lovingly fed or home meal joyfully prepared, each puke-covered toddler’s outfit calmly changed or torn trousers deftly mended, each childish interruption met with eye contact and a welcoming warmth instead of a snarl sustains Christ within the souls of the family. 

From there the thawing can spread as a warm drink for someone on duty, hot showers for folks temporarily without plumbing, vanilla for the neighbor who ran out, floor beds for travelers passing through…the list is easy to lengthen. Such conscious actions are not the only thing we should limit ourselves to as our homes also need character building, intellectual development, instruction in the Faith, and so forth. They are, however, a good base point for ensuring the bleak midwinter does not once more harden the iron of every human heart. 

In the coldest days of January, let it not be paralysis that claims the world down to its home circles but rather strong hearts given most of all to the simplest form of the Lord’s work—caring lovingly for the "least of these” found in our own family nuclei. If every woman focused first on that, how bright and how warm would spread our stables.

What can I give Him,
  Poor as I am? —
If I were a Shepherd
  I would bring a lamb;
If I were a Wise Man
  I would do my part, —
Yet what I can I give Him, —
  Give my heart.