It's a relatively slushy day here, but also a dark one. I have never understood the people who complain about cold in the winter without recognizing how many lovely sunny days we get here in Minnesota. Give me 5 and brilliant over 35 and gloomy any day.
There are random idiots who suppose that climate change will be a good thing because, well, they hate cold weather. What they don't get is that: a) the nights will be just as long as they always are in your latitude, b) global warming just means more energy in the system, which probably means more storms and extremes, not necessarily nice moderate sunny days; and c) Everything you think you know about how the world works depends on our complex climate; when that is messed up, so is what you eat, how you travel, where there is livable land, and so on .
Our congregation used to regularly sing an Advent hymn called "Warm the time of Winter." I get that 'warming' in this case is just a metaphor, but the last few years I haven't been able to bring myself to sing it. I refuse to pray for an end to winter. It will come.
I do, however, long for the light. It's no accident that the O Antiphon for this winters' solistice day is about dawn:
O Rising Dawn, Radiance of the Light eternal and Sun of Justice; come and enlighten those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death!
Amen.
