In the Bleak Midwinter

         In the deep midwinter, 
         Frosty wind made moan, 
         Earth stood hard as iron, 
         Water like a stone.
         Snow had fallen, snow on snow,
         Snow on snow,
         In the deep midwinter,
         Long ago.

That is the coldest song I know. It makes me shiver to hear it or sing it. And yet it is so beautiful.

When I woke up this morning, I felt my head/heart was clear.  I felt like an empty shell cast up on an empty beach.  I was glad.

Yet, when I came to write this posting, none of that imagery came into mind. Instead, I was thinking of "In the bleak midwinter."

Here we are in bleak midwinter. But we're supposed to be joyous! Not bleak!  We are on New Year's Eve, but it's also Christmas 7. Two kinds of happy for the price of one.  It's strange that we have these two great holidays impinged upon each other...the great Sacred one of the Incarnation, and the great Pagan one of the New Year presided over by Saturn.  And I thought:  something is not worked out yet.  I was thinking ahead to Christmas 12: Epiphany.  And I know what I think is not worked out yet. For me, anyway.

We go through the journey of Advent, and come out on Christmas Day to be happy. But do you know what? The happiness of a new birth is usually not carried forward on the eating of candy, drinking a lot, buying too much on the credit card, or for hard-got cash...the happiness of birth is a quiet one: things went well, He is here, Mother and Baby are doing well and resting quietly.  That's the happiness of Christmas.

We go along for a week of post-frantic activity, and it's New Year's. Another occasion for over doing it...but what happened to Christmas?  We are celebrating a new birth and suddenly we have to give over to the New Year? This is what I think....Christmas really locks into place for us at Epiphany.  Those Wise Men came and gave gifts. We gave gifts.  We got into it all. I don't think the scripture tells us that the shepherds gave anything, they were just witnessing and running to tell people about the wonderful things they had just seen.  We got into the act when we gave gifts to the Christ-child through the medium of those magical Kings.  So we are still leading up to it, after all.  There is no need to feel let down. No need to ask, "Where did all the fun go?".....it is just about to begin.


To those looking forward to the I Ching reading I promised: goodness me, I have lost my I Ching, my BCP, my mother's Bible with Jesus's words in red...last seen they were in my bedroom (the BCP and Bible were)but now I cannot lay my hands on them. Surely there are not so many books and piles of rubble about that they cannot be found??? Well tomorrow is New Year's Day and not too late for a New Year's reading----the Oracle is not impatient.