This Winter Give Yourself Permission To Winter

​I had a meeting with a dear friend and work colleague yesterday. She told me she is embracing the idea of wintering in her life right now. It was not coincidental then, at least not to me, that as I was driving home, deeply reflective about this wintering idea, that I drove into a blinding snow shower.

I hear you God....

In her book Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times, Katherine May writes about the idea of embracing life's dormant periods, not as mere preparation for a new season, but as meaningful in their own right.

In our culture, it is easy to come to insist that everything we do, every step we take, must contribute meaningfully to some next step in life. What is the value in this moment, we might ask, if it isn't a moment building toward something meaningful, as if a moment in itself can not be meaningful if it isn't a building block.

One can begin to think my writing this article has no meaning if it doesn't directly contribute to touching someone's life, or if it isn't a chapter in a book. As if writing in and of itself can't be meaningful.

One can begin to think that a job has no meaning if it isn't a path to retirement, or buying a house, or paying the bills. As if working in and of itself can't be meaningful.

One can begin to find meaningless a conversation with a friend, or co-worker, if there is no endgame to the conversation, some added value yet to come from time spent together. As if connecting in and of itself can't be meaningful.

And so winter, a season often associated with life coming to a halt, the leaves fall, the plants die, the dormancy of winter can feel uncomfortable to many.

It can feel unproductive.

Because of our go-go-go culture, stopping can feel like a sin. We see others plow right through winter and we guilt ourselves into believing winter will surely leave us behind if we go about our wintering.

If we go about resting.

But what if resting isn't a break from life as much as it is actually at the very heart of life? What if we didn't have to feel guilty about our rest, but instead gave ourselves permission to know that it is in the winters of our life that we often find unexpected beauty and wisdom. And find them not for the sake of some better tomorrow, but for the simple sake of beauty and wisdom themselves.

I find it interesting that God wrote a season of winter not into every year of our life, but into every week. God wrote the Sabbath into our story. One day a week when all would stop, not just to rejuvenate, but to celebrate God and life itself.

The Sabbath used to be an important part of our culture until culture decided rest was bad for business, bad for youth sports, bad for our overall cultural productivity. Whether you are spiritual or not, there is much to suggest that robbing everyone of blanket permission to not only take rest, but to celebrate it for the beauty of rest itself, has not worked out in the best interest of our wellness.

Do we ever stop long enough in the moments we are living as a step to something bigger to celebrate just how big that step is that we are currently living, to recognize that the value of right now is immense long before we know what the outcome of this right now may one day be?

I don't know the answer to that, really.

But I want to encourage you all, give you permission to the degree my permission has any value, to do a little wintering this winter. To see the shorter days and longer periods of darkness as a time to rest, to celebrate winter as a beautiful part of life's rhythms, not as a building block to spring, but as a way of celebrating the right here and right now and the quiet gift of being.

Wintering.

The sweet reminder that rest is not about preparation and productivity. It is a sacred act. A time to honor the fullness of life as it is.

Driving home yesterday, the snow indeed felt like a sacred reminder of just that.