Winter solstice

By Joan Robertson in All Sorts

Joan considers creation in the light of the Psalms.

"When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars that you have established;
what are human beings that you are mindful of them,
mortals that you care for them?" (Psalm 8:3-4)

We've had floods, landslips, heavy snow in places, and now frosts, and we're all feeling the cold! It's winter! The sun has turned his face away - or more accurately, our part of the earth has turned away from the sun. However we are nearly at the shortest day, so this is celebration time! The light will return, the days will get longer.

Some of us may also have been celebrating Matariki, the Maori New Year, when a set of stars also known as the Pleiades rise again above the horizon in the north-east.

If I am up in the night I always like to look out our window that faces south/west to see the Southern Cross. Early in the night I can see the whole cross with the pointers leading "down" to it, but later on just the pointers are there, while the Cross has set beyond the house next door!

And, back to earth -- yes, sometimes we feel dismayed when we hear of natural disasters, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, tornadoes and tsunamis. We are indeed living precariously on an unstable planet. Our earth is an active living thing. When, in some far distant future, the volcanoes stop erupting, and the plates stop moving, they tell us, then the earth will have died and everything on it. Let us rather rejoice in all the good things about our earth, sunrise and sunset, season following season ... yes, even winter!

When Colin Gibson led a service of worship last year based on the Blessings of winter, he invited feedback from the congregations. "Tracery of trees bare of leaves, and the dappled light"; "A roaring fire, and a good book"; "Bright clear days after frost"; "Dawn - the colours of the sunrise"; "The beach, the wind, wild waves"; "Fellowship with family and friends" were some the responses (they are still on our website under the title In praise of winter!)

Just last week I noticed that many of the camellias in the lower Botanic gardens are in bloom. And you will have seen the autumnalis cherry trees in blossom, and bulbs showing green shoots, if not flowers, as yet - a promise of the spring to come.

Psalm 104 is a wonderful hymn of praise to the Lord, the creator... "By the streams the birds of the air have their habitations; they sing among the branches. From your lofty abode you water the mountains; the earth is satisfied with the fruit of your work ... I will sing to the Lord as long as I live; I will sing praise to my God while I have being ... Bless the Lord, O my soul. Praise the Lord!"

First printed as a Connections article in the Parish Weekly Bulletin, June 20, 2010.