Feeling the November Blues?
It's that time of year: the season is changing; days have been shortening; the sun is almost down when you leave work at 5. The night swallows us early, and the wind starts to bite. For many, this is a season of melancholy. It's a time when the joy of the break in summer heat married with beautiful colors on the horizon from the changing leaves gives way to the cold, hard bleakness of the winter ahead. For still others, depression can start to weigh in more heavily over the coming months.
I don't think depression is trying to wrangle me in and strangle me right now as it has in the past, but I am tired. Physically, and probably mentally, I am feeling worn out. Perhaps after our move this weekend we can settle into a healthier pattern again of eating, exercising, and sleeping.
On the upside, I'm feeling in many ways refreshed and rejuvenated in spirit, thanks in large part to our church life at Elm Park UMC, and perhaps even to a greater extent because of the Friday night emergent gathering that we've been participating in. It does feel amazing when you sense God's Spirit drawing near in new ways; could it also be a fruit of granting Him more access to us, sort of opening up the doors for grace to pour through?
For those not feeling this resurgence in spirit, here is a poem that is posted over at the Bruderhof community's website. During these times let us draw nearer to God, even when we feel cold and withered like the last autumn leave. As the last line of the poem says, "And our thin dying souls against Eternity pressed."
LANDSCAPE
Come home with white gulls waving across gray
Field. Evening. A daffodil West.
Somewhere in clefts of rock the birds hide, breast to breast.
I warm with fire. Curtain shrouds dying day.
Alone. By the glowing ember
I shut out the bleak-tombed evenings of November.
And breast to breast, those swans. Sheep huddle and press
Close. Each to each. Oh,
Is there no herd of men like beasts where men may go?
Come home at last; come, end of loneliness.
Sea. Evening. Daffodil West.
And our thin dying souls against Eternity pressed.
Stephen Spender
I don't think depression is trying to wrangle me in and strangle me right now as it has in the past, but I am tired. Physically, and probably mentally, I am feeling worn out. Perhaps after our move this weekend we can settle into a healthier pattern again of eating, exercising, and sleeping.
On the upside, I'm feeling in many ways refreshed and rejuvenated in spirit, thanks in large part to our church life at Elm Park UMC, and perhaps even to a greater extent because of the Friday night emergent gathering that we've been participating in. It does feel amazing when you sense God's Spirit drawing near in new ways; could it also be a fruit of granting Him more access to us, sort of opening up the doors for grace to pour through?
For those not feeling this resurgence in spirit, here is a poem that is posted over at the Bruderhof community's website. During these times let us draw nearer to God, even when we feel cold and withered like the last autumn leave. As the last line of the poem says, "And our thin dying souls against Eternity pressed."
LANDSCAPE
Come home with white gulls waving across gray
Field. Evening. A daffodil West.
Somewhere in clefts of rock the birds hide, breast to breast.
I warm with fire. Curtain shrouds dying day.
Alone. By the glowing ember
I shut out the bleak-tombed evenings of November.
And breast to breast, those swans. Sheep huddle and press
Close. Each to each. Oh,
Is there no herd of men like beasts where men may go?
Come home at last; come, end of loneliness.
Sea. Evening. Daffodil West.
And our thin dying souls against Eternity pressed.
Stephen Spender
posted by Josh Frank at 8:39 AM| permalink |
0 comments
