saints of winter

i have often fantasized about living in one of the little stone beehive huts off the coast of scotland, or in a daub and wattle hermitage in ireland. i appreciate my little scrapwood and plastic hut in the ozarks, right on the edge of the 100 aker wood, but it isn't likely to yield any interesting archaeological residues after even five years, much less a thousand.

yet, it is cold enough here, and not only a little wet, so that when i think of what life must have really been like for the irish saints who recited the psalter whilst standing up to their necks in a cold stream, i am both happy and grateful to be where i am, chanting the psalms in coziness, with few chinks for the wind to find.

but of course as soon as i had typed "chinks for the wind to find" i heard what an ambiguous phrase that is. reading the first letter of john in the daily office this crystalclear morning, i was struck by this sentence: "and hereby we know that he abides in us, by the spirit which he has given us." (3:24b) and i think how often this first gift, this ultimate gift, this gift which marks those who are in christ's new creation remains unopened, for this is also the gift which requires us to "love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action." so often we seem to find it easier to reject the gift.

therefore i find great comfort in the wonderful lists of winter saints, beginning with thomas on the solstice, including stephen the protomartyr and the holy innocents, and going on to encompass basil and seraphim of savlov and gregory of nyssa and paul of thebes and anthony of alexandra and mark of ephesus and maximus the confessor and xenia of petersburg and john chrysostom and isaac of syria, all of whom lived lives which embodied love not [only] in word or speech,"--certainly the words of john chrysostom and isaac of syria and gregory of nyssa are as powerful encouragements for love as we can find--but also "in truth and action," even in action which this world finds bizarre or incomprehensible, as it does xenia of petersburg and paul of thebes.

and yet. yet this morning the sun rose brilliantly, a minute or so earlier than yesterday, and it shone in the darkness, even though the darkness could not comprehend it.