Winter is a great time for interior growth. Whether it is the patient quiet of advent or the joyful peace of the Christmas season, the rhythm of the liturgies coax me into a patient season of reflection and growth. Nature exhibits her beauty in new dimensions during this season. I had set aside my little hobby for a time, but the recent snow and the quiet of the season drew me outside. Photography takes a bit more resilience and a great deal more effort in this climate. As I ventured out to capture fresh snow with the lens I had to take extra precautions to avoid frostbite and endure a rather intense wind-chill. The experience remained sublime. These challenges present new lessons and new opportunities. For each of these I am grateful. Poetry often fills my mind while I shoot. If you explore this site you will find poems paired with some of the photos. This is my strange little hobby. Today my mind is filled with the beautiful lessons of winter; lessons of love and pain.
Winter’s Lessons
“In School
I used to go to a bright school
Where Youth and Frolic taught in turn;
But idle scholar that I was;
I liked to play, I would not learn;
So the Great Teacher did ordain
That I should try the School of Pain
One of the infant class I am
With little, easy lessons, set
In a great book; the higher class
Have harder ones than I, and yet
I find mine hard, and can’t restrain
My tears while studying thus with Pain.
There are two Teachers in the school,
One has a gentle voice and low,
And smiles upon her scholars, as
She softly passes to and fro.
Her name is Love; ‘tis very plain
She shuns the sharper teacher, Pain.
Or so I sometimes think; and then,
At other times, they meet and kiss,
And look so strangely like, that I
Am puzzled to tell how it is,
Or whence the change which makes it vain
To guess if it be - Love or Pain.
They tell me if I study well,
And learn my lessons, I shall be
Moved upward to that higher class
Where dear Love teaches constantly;
And I work hard, in hopes to gain
Reward, and get away from Pain.
Yet Pain is sometimes kind, and helps
Me on when I am very dull;
I thank him often in my heart;
But Love is far more beautiful;
Under her tender, gentle reign
I must learn faster than of Pain.
So I will do my very best,
Nor chide the clock, nor call it slow;
That when the Teacher calls me up
To see if I am fit to go,
I may to Love’s high class attain,
And bid a sweet good-by to Pain.”