Another cloudy winter’s mountain day with a threat of a light snowfall and the high of 33 degrees. I had the opportunity for 15 years to escape to the warmth of central Florida during the winter; however, trying to get reaccustomed to winter in the mountains, I am paying the price of initiation this year.

I am taking an online course from the Abbey of the Arts—”A Midwinter God,” God and goddesses of the dark and cold. God in the light and shadows of my life. An apt course for my initiation. Also, an apt course for Lent and Lenten practice.

For a year now, we have had to endure illness, death, and isolation in the pandemic, civil unrest caused by the racism of privileged white supremacy, and dysfunctional politicians. It has been a dark, cold year. I have tried to find ways to help myself and others.

I have been living (and surviving COVID captivity and winter’s cold, dreary days) on Zoom. I have taught a photography course, a course on Albert Camus’ The Plague, and I am currently leading a church book study on Julian of Norwich by Matthew Fox. Julian lived through recurring iterations of the bubonic plague, the Black Death. Finally, I am photographing wintery mountain scenes. A friend of mine recently posted on Facebook that her photography was an escape from reality. I replied that it could be an escape into deeper reality, an opportunity to find in the rhetoric of the Velveteen Rabbit what is “really real.”

Lent has been traditionally about giving up. As a kid I could not wait for noon on Holy Saturday when the RC, Inc. declared it would be all right for us to dig into the Easter candy. More recently Lent has come to be a time for giving back, trying to be of loving service to others. Lent provides the opportunity for the radical turning toward the Holy One—metanoia. Lent gives us the opportunity to go deeper, to explore the depths of our life with the divine, to be what is “really real.”

The pandemic has added the opportunity to shelter in place and become more than what we are, to become our face before we were born, as Buddhists say.

Julian of Norwich teaches that life is weal and woe, joy and suffering, mirth and mourning. Life is about praise and lamentation. In lamentation we cry out to the Creator and that is A OK. Yes, we can complain to God because when we do so, we are acknowledging that God is faithful, and all will be well.

Woe, suffering and mourning remind me of winter, living on the dark side. This winter, the dark is really dark with illness and death from COVID. We are reminded of the life cycle of death and resurrection. Our history with the Divine teaches us that there will be light at the end of the tunnel (and that it will not be another train!) The advance publicity for the Catholic Theological Union’s Duns Scotus Lecture by Fr. Ray Horan reads (“Spirituality in a Wintry Season: The Wisdom of the Franciscan Tradition in the Quest for Meaning Today”):

Near the end of his life, the renowned Jesuit theologian Karl Rahner frequently spoke of the contemporary context of history as resembling a “wintry season” of faith, which at first glance appears dead and frozen, but beneath the surface of increasing pluralism, religious disaffiliation, and secularity there exists the continued presence and work of God’s grace in the world.

What have I learned from a year of COVID captivity? I have learned that:

• Life is weal and woe, summer and winter.
• We are one with others and all of creation(including viruses). Our lack of care for creation has spawned COVID and will give birth to new pandemics.
• Some folks, like the characters in Camus, will deny that the plague is the plague; therefore, government will usually be slow to respond adequately to the threat. Denial is the order of the day; however, you can only hide so many dead rats.
• God is the god of summer and winter.
• All is well and all will be well.
• Our survival depends upon our caring for one another and for all of creation.
• Life will teach us what is “really real,” if we let it.
• Life strips away at us and nurtures us. Lent is a time to go deeper and let God be God, let life be life.
• Pandemics affect the poor and people of color disproportionately because social and economic structures favor those who have enough or more than enough.
• We are all first responders to others, to ourselves, and to creation.
• Racism and white privilege will destroy all of us.
• The politics of love and cooperation need to replace the politics of greed and partisanship.
• As Thomas Merton reminds us–Instead of hating the people you think are war-makers, hate the appetites and disorder in your own soul, which are the causes of war. If you love peace, then hate injustice, hate tyranny, hate greed – but hate these things in yourself, not in another. (New Seeds of Contemplation)

I invite you to join me by taking one or two of these learnings for further thought, prayer and metanoia(conversion of heart) during Lent.

I have found a 28 day journal based book on White Privilege: Me and White Supremacy: Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor by Layla F. Saad. If you want to follow me. I will post my journal reflections and send links to them. I would also like to see “what you are giving up for Lent. Giving up white privilege is going to be a lot harder than giving up peanut butter cups!