Book Club Announcement: Wintering by Katherine May
Dear God, I was reading the introduction to this book club for a book called Wintering, and some of the words really resonated with me. I think this one paragraph sums it up:
In Wintering, May opens the door to winter, settles in, then watches it pass. She lets it teach her, and us, how to winter. May uses the word “wintering” as a metaphor, applying the meteorological season to a season of life. It’s not necessarily the hardest season, not the one that pushes us beyond our limits, although that can usher in a wintering. It’s the one in which we lie “fallow.” No more to do. Wait for spring.
That’s really quite something. I’ve never thought of lying fallow as an appropriate response to a season of life. All seasons are to be addressed, aren’t they? They are to be approached with deliberate intention and action. Even if there is nothing that can be done about one thing, I need to make sure I am being constructive in another area. Vacations might be for lying fallow, but the rest of life should be worked.
So what might be happening to me in a season of life where I lie fallow? What does that look like? I mean, I know I still need to do my job and provide for myself. I can’t just let myself go into a depressed state of wallowing. I know enough about myself to realize I would ultimately just lie in self pity and make matters only worse. So I cannot totally shut down. But should there be intentional seasons of restoring my soul? A chance for my body and life to rest from producing lots of fruit so that it might gather its strength for a productive spring? This is interesting. I might just have to join this book club and read this book.
Father, speak to me. Holy Spirit, speak to me. Jesus, speak to me. It’s interesting that there is this one part in my life that seems to be completely dormant and there is absolutely nothing I can do to revive it. I’ve had to let it lie and pray that you are helping it to regenerate in the silence. Are there other areas of my life that perhaps need this as well? There is a writing project I was really interested in a year ago, and I made some exciting progress on it, but now it has gone dormant. Should I let it stay that way for a time? How will I know when spring is here and it is time to pick it up again? Or was it only important for a time and not what I thought it would be for me? I don’t know. Holy Spirit, be my counselor. Guide me. Give me ears to hear.
In Jesus’s name I pray,
Amen
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