I’ve been thinking quite a bit about the beginning lately. Perhaps it is the endless gray that was the month of January or the new pothos plant I’m propagating in the kitchen window, but my mind keeps drifting to summer gardens and longing for other things that are green. I find myself wondering what earth was like in all its newness. Was winter even a thing?
Generally I’m not one who wants to skip past these cold months with their cozy evening fires and guilt-free excuses to curl up with a novel. Sure, winters here in the Midwest are long and often arduous, but they offer a certain invitation to throw another blanket across your lap and stay in. I’m all for staying in.
But this year has been different somehow.
A subtle ache occupies the space where contentment once sat, and I find myself imagining the coming of spring, when tiny red buds begin to push out on the trees and the smell of earth rises like an invitation. I imagine sipping coffee with Ben on the front porch observing the new life bursting forth from every mama bird and fallow branch. I want to sit in the sun on our back patio until my face turns flushed.
I long for the echoes of Eden.
But the ache runs deeper than the turning of seasons, beyond the hope of all that is lush and green and full of life. It is as if my soul is looking for a place to call Home.
Recently I revisited Genesis 2, the portion where God fashioned man from the dust of the ground and infused his own breath into the lungs of humanity. Adam was crafted by the hands of God himself, and yet, surveying the new life teeming from every corner of creation, God saw one thing was, in fact, not good: the man was alone.
This part baffles me a little. I want to say, “But God, he was not ALONE alone. Weren’t you there? Did he not have unfettered access to your presence? Maybe a fluffy dog by his side?”
Maybe my thoughts are clouded by the noise that comes with four loud and rowdy sons and how so often I can feel their volume in my skin. Even so, that type of “alone” seems like a pretty great gig—an introverted contemplative’s dream. And yet, God saw it was not good.
Perhaps even we introverts can, in fact, have too much winter.
Solitude is good for the soul for a season, but when solitude sours into isolation, the soul begins to suffer. Eden comes calling. We can feel its song in our bones, the reverberations of God’s reflection, “It is not good for the man to be alone.”
Not good, not good, not good…
Alone, alone, alone…
The echo becomes hard to un-hear. But we can receive it gently. Like winter’s slow melt into spring, we can let our first brave movement toward each other be inward, as we listen to the longing and learn to sing its song. Instead of covering our ears or burying ourselves beneath quilted blankets and books, we can let the rhythm of loneliness tug us ever-so-gradually toward each other.
Because as much as we want to ignore this ancient melody that lingers just beneath the surface, we were made to hum along.
grace + peace,
Sarah
Good Things to Pick Up
a short list to narrow the space between us
A Quote
“Even when we are not interacting with other people, a great deal of what we daydream about includes our imagined interactions with others. In this way, even what we consider to be the privacy of our thoughts involves the activity of relationships.” —Curt Thompson, M.D., Anatomy of the Soul
A Poem (or two)
I’ve been gravitating more around poetry lately and found these two poems in a recent issue of Fathom Mag.
“Jack of Fields” by Paul J. Pastor
“Tree Across the Street” by Leslie Bustard
🤎 I have thoughts and words but don’t know how to arrange them. Just wanted you to know I’m here.
The part about solitude souring into isolation: yes! I used to think I was a very, very strong introvert, but I am coming to realize that it was more that I didn't know how to need others and let them in. I'm still am introvert but not painfully lonely in the same way.