January Rain

To Be Honest.

Alabama doesn't usually have snowy scenes in January, nor in February - more likely in late March or April, if there are to be any - which is so unkind - when we've slept through winter - made our vigils to Wal-Mart in the gray and damp and cold - and if not cold - then an unseasonably balmy air - and just when there's hope of spring and believing it will be here - even early buds inspire us - an April snow might give us one final lockdown - but - what's one more day or weekend or 2 days - May always returns - unless Christ does first. Which we continue to anticipate.

Therefore, this afternoon, when we had a downpour after a day or two of cloud and damp - I thought, "Why not? Didn't I run outside with my camera after our light dusting of snow? Don't we make snow a holiday?" so - I lifted my camera and tried to find some really good wet spots - which I think I did.

These are what January Days in Alabama really look like. Is it any wonder we need encouragement and fellowship and crafts and food and drink? We are made to create our own color from the visuals we were given in spring, summer, and fall -

I googled poetry regarding Winter. Here is some.

As You Like It, Act II, Scene VI

by William Shakespeare

Blow, blow, thou winter wind,

Thou art not so unkind

As man's ingratitude;

Thy tooth is not so keen,

Because thou art not seen,

Although thy breath be rude.
Heigh-ho! sing, heigh-ho! unto the green holly:

Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly:

Then, heigh-ho, the holly!

This life is most jolly.

Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky,

That does not bite so nigh

As benefits forgot:

Though thou the waters warp,

Thy sting is not so sharp

As friend remembered not.

Heigh-ho! sing

The Darkling Thrush

by Thomas Hardy

I leant upon a coppice gate
When Frost was spectre-gray,
And Winter's dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
Had sought their household fires.
The land's sharp features seemed to be
The Century's corpse outleant,
His crypt the cloudy canopy,
The wind his death-lament.
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
Seemed fervourless as I.
At once a voice arose among
The bleak twigs overhead
In a full-hearted evensong
Of joy illimited;
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,
In blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
Upon the growing gloom.
So little cause for carolings
Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
His happy good-night air
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew
And I was unaware.

Awww. My beautiful blue 2010 Hydrangeas are tucked away in this brown wet bush of bare stems. Can't you just hear it slurping up all that needed water for making and giving gorgeous blue and purple and pale green mopheads? Thank you God, for all the seasons and all that You teach us through every season - thank you for nature and how it resembles our spiritual lives. And thank you that when anything seems dormant, or is, you are not. You are always teeming with life and You never sleep. Thank you for your plan of resurrection and redemption.