FACING UP
The winter of life
I remember when I was a teenager an elderly raan in my hometown saying with a long, sad look on his face, "Winter is coming." I think he expected me to give him some sympathy, but in my youthful experience, I didn't stop to think how it affected him. I simply reacted in the way I felt. "Oh boy, winter is coming. Yippee, hooray." I was thinking of ice hockey and ice curling and all the games I could have fun playing in the snow and ice of winter. We are into April now in the Waimarino . It is time for facing up to the fact that winter is coming quickly for us. I imagine there will be very difficult reactions to that fact, just as between myself and the elderly man long ago. For some it will be an "oh boy" reaction. It won't be long before we are skiing on the mountain. For others, it will mean more business because there will be many more people around. For others still, it will mean getting the firewood in for warmth on cool winter nights. There will be the cleaning up of vege gardens, cleaning the soot out of the chimney, getting in winter supplies, or getting the sheep ready for the cold winter season. Life, like nature, has its seasons as well, including
the season of winter. For some the winter season is a time to stay home most of the time, which often leads to loneliness, isolation and depression. This season of winter can descend upon us suddenly with the rapid, unexpected loss of a loved one, or it can descend slowly if we allow ourselves to "sink into" old age. For others, the winter season is not a season of death and dying, but a dormant season, a time to restore, rebuild and prepare for spring and new life. That's partly why I find it more difficult to 'feel' Easter here when it is not in tune with nature's spring. The Easter message however, "Christ is risen", is a message for all people in all seasons, including winter. May the risen Christ lift up your spirits and mine in the winter months ahead.
Rev.
Don
Bater
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/WAIBUL19860415.2.31
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Waimarino Bulletin, Volume 3, Issue 44, 15 April 1986, Page 8
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375FACING UP Waimarino Bulletin, Volume 3, Issue 44, 15 April 1986, Page 8
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