Our first notable snow storm welcomed me back to Motown last evening and gave the university a lovely 10:00 am start, time to plow parking lots. \u00a0The snow reminded me of Jane Kenyon\u2019s taut, crisp poem about the coming of winter as people around here re-learn winter skills for driving and walking and for tasting the \u00a0beauty of gradually dimming light. \u00a0The further north you live, the steeper the decline of light as the sun\u2019s angle casts longer shadows over shorter patches of daylight. What we call Winter around here is as much about the thinning of the light as it is about ice and cold. As I walk around campus running M&I errands these days of December, I hear stories of courage and kindness along with \u00a0fatigue and doubt. \u00a0 \u00a0 Perhaps that\u2019s why the Christian Advent poetry brings captivity and fear close to hope and promise. \u00a0\u00a0Several Swedish friends who live a little further north than I do, have designed their homes with small pools of bright light within dim spaces. \u00a0Learning from them, I try some of the same where I live. \u00a0Maybe the jagged self-doubt today\u2019s poet finds while watching the last frozen apple fall into an early snow bank is part of what helps us recognize some necessary balance:<\/p>\n
if no doubt, no new discovery;
\nif no fatigue, no joy,
\nif no discouragement, no place where soul friends can love us.<\/p>\n
Thomas Merton wrote once, perhaps in the teeth of our doubts:
\n\u201cThere is no way of telling strangers they are all walking around shining like the sun.\u201d<\/p>\n
Have a blest Monday,<\/p>\n
john sj<\/p>\n
Today\u2019s Post: \u00a0<\/strong>Jane Kenyon: \u201cApple Dropping Into Deep Early Snow\u201d A jay settled on a branch, making it sway. Dusk is eager and comes early. A car \u201cApple Dropping Into Deep Early Snow\u201d by\u00a0Jane Kenyon,<\/a>\u00a0from\u00a0American Poetry Review\u00a0(online<\/a>\u00a0edition, March\/April 1985). Monday, December 12 \u00a0 \u201cStories of beauty, fatigue, and doubt\u201d No post last Friday, I was hanging out with my sister Midge in Carson \u00a0City, NV, including time along the north eastern shore of Lake Tahoe. \u00a0 Wiki tells me: … Continue reading
\n<\/a>Posted by Phyllis Cole-Dai on Nov 24, 2014 12:00 am<\/p>\n![\"snowy-apple\"](\"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/170\/2016\/12\/snowy-apple.jpg\")
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\nThe one shrivelled fruit that remained
\ngave way to the deepening drift below.
\nI happened to see it the moment it fell.<\/p>\n
\ncreeps over the hill. Still in the dark I try
\nto tell if I am numbered with the damned,
\nwho cry, outraged, Lord, when did we see you?<\/p>\n![\"jane-kenyon\"](\"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/170\/2016\/12\/Jane-Kenyon.jpg\")
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\nArt credit:\u00a0\u201cApple in the Snow,\u201d\u00a0photograph<\/a>\u00a0by\u00a0Roger Lynn.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
![photograph<\/a>\u00a0by](\"http:\/\/farm1.static.flickr.com\/107\/311944157_7bc24540cd_m.jpg\"){kind=link}