Greetings in the Name of the Lord, 

I may not be in the majority on this, but I really love the first snowfall of the year. It is such a clear marker of seasonal change, it is an opportunity to be intentional about going forward, and reflecting on what has been. It reminds us of the seasons of life: that we change, the people around us change, our circumstances change, our surroundings can change. It reminds us that we may need different things in different times of our lives. It is a reminder of the way we can prepare and shift our approach, our preparation. 

And winter, just like fall and spring and summer, brings with it its own rituals, it brings with it its own rhythms. And these rituals and rhythms, they help define who we are as a community.  We all know what it's like to have to get up earlier and clean off the car and shovel the driveway. We all know what it's like to take a few extra minutes to get on the boots and a good hat and a scarf and a heavier jacket. We know what it's like to close the storm windows and pull out the sweaters and the gloves from storage, putting away the shorts and flip-flops till next year.  We know what its like to stay in on a snowy evening with hot chocolate, or hot cider, or maybe even a hot toddy.  It helps us define who we are in a very local way, it helps us have shared experiences, even the act of griping about how horrible the road conditions are, and how everyone else doesn't know how to handle them.. 

We also know how to trust that eventually, spring will in fact return. 

I think I appreciate the first snow fall even more after living beyond Rochester from 2004 until 2021. Most notable was my time in New Orleans, because during the nearly 5 years I lived there, it did not snow once, in fact it typically only snows there about every 20 years, and even then, it's rarely more than an inch or two.  For someone from Rochester, it felt like there were only two seasons in New Orleans, hot and not as hot. If I am honest, it was a bit disorienting, i found it particularly hard to track time, and not only because of the lack of seasons, but the shifts between hot and not as hot were slow and subtle and barely noticeable. 

After a few years, I discovered that they did in fact have their own distinct seasons, more than we have actually!  What I discovered was that they had seasons like shrimp season, and crawfish season and oyster season and crab season and love bug season (ask Clay about that last one).  These sometimes overlapped, but they marked time in important ways. They also leaned heavily in Festival season and Mardi Gras Season, these more human created, but nonetheless helped mark the time of year. Most notably they had Hurricane season, which had its own rituals and rhythms, and its own way of tying folks together, and creating shared stories.  

As we inch ever closer to advent, our church seasons are meant to mirror the seasons that surround us. To encourage us to remember and to come together to share stories.  The rituals and rhythms of our different liturgical seasons root us in shared experience, in shared memories, in opportunities to rest into what we know. Our seasons help make us who we are, help give us meaning and help us make sense of our surroundings. I encourage us to move through those liturgical seasons with the same intent in which we move through fall into winter and on towards spring. Doing so not only deepens our connection to each other and our past, but to our God who brings us into a future we can trust, in much the same way we can trust crocuses will one day again break through a crust of snow.  

In Peace, 

Mike