Wherever the wind blows

  • The weather at this time of year is so change­able. Yes­ter­day, the heat was on. Today, the air con­di­tioner was on. Short sleeves yes­ter­day, long sleeves today. Lay­ers go on, lay­ers come off.

    And we’ve been hav­ing a lot of blus­tery days, when the trees keep up a steady sort of shush­ing noise and grace­fully undu­late in solemn gen­u­flec­tion to that unseen force — the autumn wind. The wind moves clouds the size of palaces and cra­dles falling leaves as they drop. It can turn bit­ing and whisk falling rain up and around until it falls, as it did the other night, in icy hail that sounds like a rain of pen­nies on the roof.

    I’m think­ing about the wind more as I mull this from “My Life in Christ:”

    Some­times in nature a warm, health­ful wind blows, pleas­antly and lightly, per­me­at­ing and com­ing in con­tact with the body, and the sky is serene; while at other times a cold wind blows, and one feels some­how dis­tressed and fever­ish. The wind pierces to the very bones and affects the body unpleas­antly, and the earth and sky are dark­ened. Some­times the state of the atmos­phere is warm and warmth-giving, and at other times cold, benumbing.

    It is like­wise in the spir­i­tual life. Some­times our soul is sur­rounded and pen­e­trated by a light, pleas­ant, warmth-giving breath, while at oth­ers our heart is touched by a heavy, deathly breath, accom­pa­nied by com­plete spir­i­tual dark­ness. The first state pro­ceeds from the Spirit of God, the sec­ond from the Devil. It is nec­es­sary to accus­tom our­selves to every­thing. As in the first case, not to grow self-conceited, so in the last, not to fall into despon­dency, into despair, but to fer­vently have recourse to God.

    – St. John of Kro­n­stadt, “My Life in Christ”

    I have noth­ing to add, really. (And a great sigh of relief goes out all around.) Just think­ing about the dif­fer­ent ways the wind blows.

    dandelion_2.jpg


    Related posts:

    1. Rainy Sat­ur­day in October
    2. Late win­ter, early spring
    3. The “Russ­ian Priest”: On self-denial
    4. Some days are diamonds
    5. Why is faith so difficult?

    October 4th, 2009 | Grace | 2 Comments |

2 Responses and Counting...

  • Anam Cara 10.04.2009

    How amaz­ing!

    Just this morn­ing I woke up cold (we slept with the win­dows open as last night was a lovely evening and it was 43 degrees when we woke up!). I snug­gled more under the light blan­ket, but the cold pen­e­trated it. I thought of how from being toasty and asleep, the cold sud­denly pen­e­trated deep to my very bones (I really needed to get up and close the win­dow, but was too cold to do that!) and that led me to the thought of Hebrews 4:12:
    ” For the word of God is liv­ing and pow­er­ful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, pierc­ing even to the divi­sion of soul and spirit, and of joints and mar­row, and is a dis­cerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.”

    So now I am see­ing God not just as fire and warmth, but also see­ing Him in the cold that pen­e­trates to the joints!

    PS My hus­band, bless his heart, got up and closed the win­dows so I could get out of bed.

  • George Pat­sourakos

    We need to have our souls sur­rounded by a light, pleas­ant, warmth-giving breath as much as we can. We also need to be hum­ble and to love all human beings. Only then, will we be able to receive the Light of Christ and every­thing that accom­pa­nies it.

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