"AND NOW LET US BELIEVE IN A LONG YEAR THAT IS GIVEN TO US," RAINER MARIA RILKE

North Carolina Midwinter Sunset

"AND NOW LET US BELIEVE 

IN A LONG YEAR THAT IS GIVEN TO US,

NEW, UNTOUCHED,

FULL OF THINGS THAT HAVE NEVER BEEN"

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926)

So many reasons to like January.  Here where we spend New Years, the sun sets over the sea.  Soon that will end until next December.  It's a beautiful, long, cold month.  Much longer than December, that crowded month that moves like a speeding train after Thanksgiving up till Christmas.  As early as we put our decorations up, it's already Epiphany and time to take them down.  When you name who you've seen or heard from over the holiday, or baked or bought gifts for, or even just remembered, the list is longer than the rest of the year combined.  

January doesn't rush, it lingers.  Dusk still comes in the afternoon, and our evenings are long.  We sleep more when days are short.  We put the kids to bed early and they seem not to mind.  Dark signals a tuck-in and blankets.  Like the rest of nature, we kind of hibernate.  If it's not a workday, we wake more slowly, stretching to greet not only the day, but the beginning of our year.  Warming food, indoor games and maybe some snow-time.  Skiing and sledding and snow angels.  We don't have snow in the North Carolina Piedmont yet, but we can hope.  Today was, after all, our coldest morning so far this season at 26⁰ and a frozen birdbath. The meadow sparkled with frost.  

We need days like this.  We need to make the most of what this month has to offer.  We need a year filled not just with "things that have never been," but with good things that have never been.  Or good things that return each year in a new way. This Christmas and Hanukah were blessed, as always.  Even after great losses.  The first Holy Day after a great loss, as hard as it is, seems to bring us back to the consolation and joy of our faith. 

I found joy watching the sun set over the ocean this week.  I even enjoyed undecorating the tree today.  The ornaments are precious, packed now and ready for next year.  

We want to be content, at peace, safe in our hearts. We're all tired of pain and sorrow and the ever-disheartening news.  Yesterday, yet again dear Lord, a six-grader was killed in an Iowa school shooting by a 17-year-old who took his own life.  I've had children both ages.  The horror is no longer unimaginable, nowhere near unimaginable. 

There is much we dare not ignore.  We live in a disconnected time.  But we must also give ourselves permission to believe that we are strong, protected, not from death--not that at all--but from despair or indifference.  The year 2024 is new, untouched, filled with hours and days for us to embrace.  It is given to us to make the most of in whatever way we can for however long we can.  

If we watch the news tonight, it is with certainty that new crimes will have been committed against humanity.  I don't say this casually. But we can also take permission from this long midwinter night to cherish our lives and make plans with someone we care about for the unknown days ahead.  Nothing lasts.  That's why the year will be filled with things that have never been.  And we know with equal certainty that some of them will be very, very good.  

Maybe we'll even have snow.                         

In peace, Nina Naomi